Last time it was Meccano. Now it’s books. But for the first time I can think of in the history of Tintin, these are Tintin books based off of a Tintin film based off of Tintin books!

So far I’ve only found them on german amazon (isn’t it weird how Japanese and German somehow are more popular languages for official Tintin news? ) but it looks like there will be (these have not yet been released) a ”The Secret of The Unicorn” movie book in paperback (whether it is a new format to the classic album or a complete retelling based on scenes from the movie is not clear, but it looks more like the latter to me), a ” Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn” sticker book (clearly based only off of the movie), and a Tintin Movie Picture Book , that will probably have a target audience of kids 5 years old or younger but sounds like a gold mine of new Tintin movie stills to those of us who have been following this for so long.

But perhaps the most interesting product coming soon is a series of books using the Tintin movie to get kids learning how to read. There will be at least two different books at different reading levels. Now German kids will be able to learn their language using ”Tim und Struppi”, and more than likely we’ll see the translated product in our countries as well. Many a man who used to hate reading learned how by reading Tintin, and there is even a dyslexic who is where he is today because of Tintin.  There will also be a book that I’m assuming does not mean google translators literal ”Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn History Book” but ”story book” coming out. How it will differ from the previously mentioned movie book I don’t know. Perhaps one really is the comic and the other is a storybook from the movie. But I think it’s probably that the first is a short novel based on the film while the other will be bigger and tell the story for younger kids with big pictures.

Whether these are the official covers or will change when they have more to work with, I don’t know. There is almost no difference between the images used here and the ones we’ve seen already. But in any case, here they are:

”The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn” book

The sticker book

The movie photo book. I’m sure somebody somewhere is getting yelled at for putting this up without making sure nothing was wrong with it, but in case they take it down from Amazon I promise I copied it exactly how I found it on the site. I’m dying to know the story behind this. Remember Chris, how you posted about how you thought Haddock’s arm position in this image looked wrong? Maybe somebody took you a bit too seriously? Or was this some kind of practical joke? What possible reason could there be to Photoshop Haddock’s arm off? Hope somebody realizes their mistake before the books hit the shelves…

”Learn to read- Level 1”

”Learn to read-level 2” I think that its great that they are getting Tintin into an educational thing like this. I would have fully expected a watercolor and paintbrush set before this, but if it sparks kids interests in Tintin AND Reading, I am behind it one hundred percent.

This is what google translator called the ”History book”. Don’t you wish your History book had had Tintin in it? As Chris showed us with his great Tintin Movie map (check it out on this site if you haven’t) a geography book might have been more appropriate. But I’m thinking this is a story book with pictures for ”beginner readers”.

Overall I’m not sure what I think of these. So far what we have seen from images and the trailer looks awesome, but what we have seen from the toys is designed for much younger audiences. These books remind me of the comment in the Empire article last year that said all they need to do to sell the movie in the USA is advertise it like a Pixar film. Pixar annually comes out with sticker books and story books just like these for their films. I have never been much of a fan of ”books based on movies”, but it’s just another marketing strategy. What I’m not sure if I like now is the fact that, even though we’ve been ”spoiling” ourselves for years now, these books are ultimate spoilers. We’ll definitely know exactly what happens in the story once these come out, and they always come out before the movie hits cinemas. I’d much rather see the film on an Imax screen for the first time and fnd out exactly how the story goes there than have a toddlers story book give me the condensed version.

I’ve been telling people for years that the Tintin movie would have huge amounts of merchandise of all kinds and let the world know who he is. It’s fun to watch it happen. I will be shocked if Tintin does’t make it into a happy meal somewhere in the world.

By the way, did anybody else notice Snowy’s mouth and eyes and a few other features are slightly different than in the empire image? Compare the two:

Source: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_de_DE=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Tim+einhorn&x=0&y=0

Very special thanks to Steven (NL) for finding this info!

Which one would you give it?

In a very interesting article here we find how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is forced to once again reconsider how they should treat films created using ”motion capture”. In 2010, AMPAS refused to recognize films created using this technique as eligible for the ”Best Animated Film” award, stating in their rules that “Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.” But now Spielberg is calling his new movie an animated film. Whose going to say he’s wrong? And if it isn’t an animated film, what is it?

We’ve seen movies created using only motion-capture such as the Polar Express or A Christmas Carol. But people are quickly realizing that Tintin is about to outdo them, and any other motion-capture movie ever made. I’m not looking to offend any fans of those films. I myself enjoy several of them. But none of them have crashing airplanes or sailing pirate ships. None of them have Spielberg or Jackson working on them.  None of them have been based off of an original artistic source that thousands of people around the globe read and love. As the trailer put it, this is something we’ve ”never seen before”. And somebody’s going to want to give it an award.

It’s not fair to call it a live-action film. Sure, we must remember it was shot very similar to how you would shoot a live-action film. But it just isn’t one. The locations, the sets, the props, and even Snowy himself are all computer-generated. That’s animation. But according to some you can’t call it ”true” animation either. Companies like Pixar don’t think it’s fair for them to go through all the time and effort to animate their character’s movement from scratch just so that somebody else can scan a person to do the job for them. They made that clear in the credits for Ratatouille:  ”Our Quality Assurance Guarantee: 100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film.” AMPAS officially has decided to share their view on the subject.

I see where Pixar is coming from. But Spielberg isn’t just scanning people in to make an animated film that’s easier to animate. He’s using motion-capture technology to stay true to Hergé’s artwork while still allowing himself to direct and shoot the movie like he would any other movie. For all you guys on YouTube complaining about how the film should have simply been done like a Pixar film, or even for you guys who think it should have been a live-action film, THAT is the reason Spielberg made this movie the way he did. It wasn’t because he was taking a ”shortcut”. Nor was it because he wanted to be able to control all the elements, put his real film cameras into storage and shoot the rest of his movies through a computer. It was because this was the only way that  it would still REALLY look like the Tintin Hergé drew that allowed Spielberg to still use real actors, and really take the shots himself,  and direct the film like he has always directed.

Will AMPAS take this into consideration when the Oscars are given out? I hope so. Personally, I don’t care what they call the award.  What matters for me is that they give it to them.

Sources: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/awards/2011/05/for-oscar-purposes-is-spielbergs-tintin-animated.html

http://www.digitalacting.com/2010/07/13/new-oscar-rules-deem-motion-capture-not-an-animation-technique/

It was great to see the launch of a teaser tailer and advance posters for TINTIN, a movie I’m making with Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy. It’s been a very long time coming. This film, like all CGI-based movies, required a long period of previs and R&D—and then, once the movie is “shot” on the motion capture stage, it takes another two years to complete. It’s probably been 5 years since Steven and I started working on it.

I’m alive!!! I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it sooner! How is it the one day I know the trailer is coming out I HAD to be away from my computer for diverse reasons nearly all day? It was torture guys, torture! I see from the comments that you have all seen it already. I love the one comment that wonders if I died of shock. I laughed so hard!

Actually nearly every Tintin Movie fan on the planet must have seen this by now, but for those of you who haven’t, here are the biggest news since they announced the making of the Tintin movie all those years back: the Tintin Teaser Trailer is out!!!

Two slightly different versions were created. I prefer the one below because of a few extra seconds of footage included and the way the dramatic music starts. Believe me, I tried everything to get the YouTube link to show the video on this blog (except, apparently, whatever I need to do to get it to work). I’ve been trying for an hour! Anyway, if you hit the link below it will take you to the HD video, which is worth a full-screen watch anyhow.

Official International Tintin Trailer

Since I hope you’ll want to watch it again, check out Empire’s version here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWRA6v7UAS8&feature=player_embedded

Time to over analyze

Sorry guys, but I just had to. I know we’ve been dying to see it all in motion, but just for analysis sake let’s go back over the whole trailer’s most notable frames:

Could Snowy possibly look any better in this image? Great way to introduce Tintin and Snowy.

At the end of the video we get our clearest ever shot of Tintin’s face. It took me a bit by surprise at first, but the more I watch the trailer the more it grows on me. It looks wonderful. While in physical appearance he looks more human than Hergé’s Tintin (but come on, if they had tried to pull off his nose for this movie he would have looked totally ridiculous…) he has the same feel. He’s somewhere between being a man and a boy, but nobody knows just how old he looks. He looks heroic but at the same time not quite an adult yet. But unlike so many children’s stories that just make the villains look like complete idiots so that children can be the stars of the show, all of the formidable villains in the series respect and in a sense almost fear Tintin. Whether because of his reporter status or because of his fame in stopping crime, the villains talking at the end know who Tintin is.

The model unicorn looks so good it almost looks like a real image. Weta Digital never ceases to amaze me. Don’t miss snowy and Tintin in the reflection. Apparently Tintin isn’t finding the model ship quite the same way he does in the book. But I don’t think this is the same Unicorn you see later in the dark scene with the flashlight. My money is on this being the one Tintin gets, and the other is somebody else’s Unicorn

Tintin’s street!  It looks just like his street in the books. The car really reminds me of  something Hergé would (or did) draw.

If I had to pick, this just might be my favorite part of the whole trailer. I couldn’t stop laughing!  I love this idea. This says something for how funny the Thompson ”Twins” will be in the film.

Silk looks just as great as ever. This should make for a great chase scene.

Here we find two characters that were never even in the same album originally: Sakharine (the guy who wanted to buy the Unicorn from Tintin) and Allan. But it seems Allan will be substituting the weaker Bird Brothers as the main villain in this story, and Sakharine made it on the Karaboudjan somehow with him as well. Another prisoner?

I am certain they put Haddock in this so little just because I said I was looking forward to seeing him in this yesterday.  This is the only time he appears, and you can barely see him. But what we can see of him looks EXACTLY like he should, so I’m happy.

The seaplane flies off to take down Tintin and Haddock!  Insert dramatic John Williams music here! (Of course, we all know the trailer music was not John William’s music, but I can’t wait to hear what he does with this scene).

The Karaboudjan in all it’s glory. (By the way the spell check loves that word. Anybody have any idea why it thinks it’s similar in any way to the word Paraboloidal? Ha ha ha…).

The unlucky guard appears to later be asked by Allan ”How could you let them escape?”. Not sure how he’ll answer to Allan, but we in the audience know it happened after Snowy bit the poor thug’s arm and then Tintin punched him half way across the ship. Go Tintin!

A friend watching the trailer with me for the first time said ”Wow! That’s not how I remember that in the book, but…I like this more!” I completely agree with him.  Although we’re really stressing credibility when it comes to Tintin SURVIVING that crash, the crash itself is totally awesome. Hey, the plane did crash in the desert. Let’s let Hollywood have fun with that!

The Unicorn sailing into…the desert…?

Actually, the sea itself is COVERING the desert,and the Unicorn is sailing on that. I still think that it’s just a dramatic transition between the two settings, not really a shot of the Unicorn crashing into the desert. Maybe Haddock tells the story of his ancestor while the two are walking in the desert, hence the transition. Or maybe it’s a hallucination?

Look familiar anybody? This is the exact same scene that we got one of our early images from of Barnaby standing in the door. Sorry to spoil it for you guys, but it looks like Barnaby comes to leave a warning, and then gets shot from behind. He falls down right there in the doorway and Tintin races after the culprits in their awesome blue gangster car…I guess the lesson here is that Tintin should have invited Barnaby inside to have a seat instead of pointing a gun at him to let him get shot in the back…but hey, he didn’t know.

This could explain the warning sentence from the beginning. It could be Barnaby, or it could be Haddock. I think the voice could fit for both characters, but especially Haddock. I really like Tintin’s voice. I was a little worried that it would have a strong accent I didn’t like or wouldn’t match the character, but the voice matches perfectly.

The characters look great throughout the entire video. I don’t care what anybody on YouTube says, they do not look creepy or ugly like some people who love to hate anything they see. For starters the effect isn’t as bad as haters say it is in the movies that do have the Uncanny Valley effect, but the real thing here is that the images simply don’t have that. I would much rather look at these characters than, say, Andy from Toy Story 3.

It’s interesting that both in the posters as in the trailer, the subtitle was not included, but it was in Cannes.

Finally, the trailer is almost everything we could have dreamed and hoped for, and the little bit left out is simply what makes it a teaser trailer.  Anything that used to look unnatural looks fine in motion, just as we expected. I said I would give it a chance, and having seen the trailer I will definitely be going to see this in full Imax 3D when it comes out.  For being 1:o3 minutes long, it had plenty of stuff for us Tintin fans to watch and enjoy while we wait for the next piece of big news.

I think the trailer was well worth the wait.

Empire just released not one but two incredibly awesome movie posters! They are so epic I hardly have to say anything about them. I will of course, but regardless they speak for themselves:

What’s worth mentioning?

• Despite the lack of a subtitle, it is crystal clear that ”The Unicorn” is a ship, not a fantastical creature. The uninformed viewer will know the movie will be more like Pirates of The Caribbean in some scenes than ”My Little Pony”.
• Snowy is not fat.
• Tintin is not holding a gun. Spielberg made an epic movie poster without one.
• The combination of dark shadows and blazing flames both on 16th century ships and 20th century seaplanes add the feel of mystery, action and adventure without any words needing to be said. In the first, the lighting is simply dark and mysterious, adding to the ”film noir”.
• Tintin is obviously not really next to The Unicorn (unless the plot has been changed a lot…) in the first poster, so it may be too soon to assume that The Unicorn crashes in the desert. I think they just combined the sand and the water for dramatic effect and to add symmetry to the camels in the dessert on the left
• Tintin himself looks incredible. If you look closely at his face I think you may actually recognize his expression and even his pose from a panel in the comics. I definitely think they made his face dark here only for dramatic effect, nothing more.
• Hergé name is clearly mentioned before even the actor’s names. I’m sure he would appreciate that. I wonder if Moulinsart had anything to do with that…
• The 3D format will be well worth a watch.
• Finally, Spielberg and Jackson have done a magnificent job beginning their adverting campaign. I totally believe that even if I had never heard of Tintin I would gape in awe at these two posters. I just realized that Tintin is going to be that much more incredible and full scale than even I had imagined.

New trailer to come out tomorrow

At the end of empire’s post, they just threw in the info that the new Tintin trailer will not be released with Kung Fu Panda 2 but will actually in fact be on their site tomorrow morning! I am so excited! And after seeing these images, I am even more excited! These are definitely my favorite still images of Tintin released so far. I love every bit of them! I’m really hoping for another image of Haddock. I don’t know if I’m going to sleep tonight…

For one reason or another nearly every Tintin fan doesn’t exactly consider Moulinsart as their favorite merchandising company…and I’m sure many of you agree I’m putting that lightly. Among many reasons that I don’t need to go into here, one is that Moulinsart flashes their slogan ”Tintin: for ages 7-77” all over the place in their shop in Brussels but isn’t really directing their target audience at children. All you need to do is visit their website and see the 310 euro model rocket or the 15 euro tea pot with the elephants from The Blue Lotus on them. These things aren’t designed for children!

So let’s congratulate Moulinsart for its latest marketing strategy…it’s actually doing something right for kids this time. And to top it all off it’s also doing it in the USA where people don’t know what a tintin is…

In May and July 2011, Tintin comes to an exciting new 6X9 paperback format for young readers! These young reader editions will feature:

• Popular paperback 6 inch X 9 inch trim, similar to today’s leading kids graphic novels.
• New character bios at the start of each book, so new Tintin readers can get to know each player in the adventure.
• 25 pages of additional backmatter, allowing fans to dig deeper into each adventure, will include the global history of Tintin, original sketches, actual diagrams upon which the vehicles in the tales were based, timelines, historical photos, character and story inspiration, biographical information about Hergé.
•Six more adventures will release in Fall 2011!

It’s one of the best ideas they’ve had in a very long time. These books will look like the novels little kids in the USA are reading right now. In the unlikely event that an American already is a fan of Tintin, he can eventually complete his collection, something that’s not very easy to do in the States right now. But the point is that kids will know about Tintin, and the Tintin Movie won’t be the only reason. Indirectly the movie probably caused Moulinsart to publish this format, just to avoid that the Tintin movie would be the first time kids had heard of him at all. Also, they can smack a sticker on these things yelling out ”new movie coming December 2011!”.

If any of you reading this are from the USA and have children I truly hope you get your kids interested in Tintin. My dad got me a 3 in 1 set of Tintin books when I was little for Christmas and they were the main thing I wanted every Christmas and birthday since until I owned every other book in the series. I loved them when I was seven and I still do even more. Don’t let the new childish look fool you. YOU would enjoy these adventure stories too! They aren’t just for kids! It’s a great buy for both you and your child. It’s also a great way to maybe get him to read a truly beautiful comic book instead of settling for TV shows like ”Kick Buttowski” or ”The Fairly Oddparents”.

It’s got great stories with great characters. It teaches about friendship and geography. Each album is packed with action on every single page. And on top of that each album is hilarious. These books will be well worth the 9 bucks for any possible fan. Look at me…I just gave Moulinsart 3 paragraphs of free advertising. But I’m not doing it for them, I’m doing it for Tintin. Being an American myself, I would love to see the books get popular in my homeland. I am sick and tired of people asking me if I am referring to Rin Tin Tin when I mention the boy reporter…

Finally, Tintin is being sold to kids like Hergé would have wanted it.

There is confirmation from Sony pictures that we can expect a teaser trailer this month. Also, Alberta film reviews says that it will be 1:o3 minutes long, and is G rated (thank goodness for that, we want the kids to be able to see this…). We don’t know what movie the trailer will be released with, but it should definitely be out before or with Kung Fu Panda 2 which comes out late this month. It might come out with Pirates of the Caribbean 4 as well. Both would be good choices because they are 3D films. Kung fu Panda 2 would make lots of sense because it is distributed by Paramount. There is precious little time until we see the trailer! You can bet you will find it here as soon as it comes out online too!

Thanks Britto and Proman for finding this stuff out! Keep it up!

The official website is out! Check it out! For now there is not much to see there, but like any official movie website we can expect it to be updated in time. Still, it’s well worth a visit. Want to go see those HD images we’ve seen a thousand times over again? There’s an image gallery. Curious about when Tintin Movie is coming out in Quatar? There is a great page showing a large amount of the international release dates for the film. North America and a few others were for some reason not included, but we know from pages like IMAX.com that Tintin will hit America and I suppose that the others will be posted in time. Make sure to ”like” the page if you’ve got a social network account of any sort. There’s a matching facebook page as well. The website also has a nice Tintin logo. Not the first one we’ve seen, but pretty cool none the less.

Here’s the site: http://www.tintin-movie.net/#

It’s interesting that the Japanese site actually has much more text. It has very little to do with the kind of things shown on this new site.

And of course Tintinology isn’t going anywhere. Make sure to keep checking back here for news and updates! There are so many these days…I’m glad I can keep all you Tintin fans informed.

But of course half of you seem to keep visiting this website to LEAVE news instead of find it out! Great job guys! You all do an awesome job at finding this stuff!

According to ”The Film Stage” on Twitter, there’s a good chance that the Tintin teaser trailer will come out before the premiere of Dreamwork’s Kung Fu Panda 2. If Dreamworks was still a part of the making of Tintin, I would expect it to come out with it. It could be Kung Fu Panda 2, or perhaps it will come out with another movie coming out around the same time. Panda 2 would be a good choice if the teaser trailer is in 3D.

Kung Fu Panda 2 hits theaters this month, May 26th. So if the source is correct, we could have very little time to wait. With the recent advertisement in France and the film festival going on, it wouldn’t surprise me to find some kind of a trailer out very soon.

Thanks Paul for finding this info! I can hardly wait to see something in motion soon!

Just a word of caution to all you fellow Tintin fans who are dying to see a trailer…as important as it is, it is still only a trailer. It will only reveal a certain amount of content from the film and being a teaser trailer, we shouldn’t expect much. We are hence bound to take every last detail revealed and analyze it over and over until the next time stuff is revealed. I’ll admit that is all really great fun and all that. Go ahead! But let’s do our best to remember that there are and will be differences between the film and the albums. If we must over analyze (and we’re all dying to,right?) let’s not do it to subconsciously pick on the material and bring out every flaw from Tintin’s hair to Snowy’s paw. Be positive and enjoy the long awaited trailer!

source:http://twitter.com/#!/TheFilmStage/status/68183762336362496

Thanks Britto! This is the best yet!

This picture shows the gun and especially Snowy better than any of the others.  There are mixed views about how Snowy looks. Anyway, I think they’ve pegged the tail, the ears and the nose. If his head or body looks a bit strange to anybody, they should consider how difficult it would be to convert Snowy to the big screen in the first place, especially considering he is completely computer generated. There really isn’t a dog in the world that looks exactly like Snowy. Why should we suddenly expect to see one in a movie? Let’s give Jackson a bit of a break and just see what he can do with the ”new” Snowy.