Tintin movie news can come from ANYWHERE, and this time it came from the land of ”Tim and Struppi”. This trailer is only 30 seconds, and of course it’s in German, but the images speak for themselves. However, if only because there is just one more month until the movie comes out and old habits die hard, I just HAVE to do a slightly long trailer post with screen shots. It’s too great an opportunity to pass up…

To watch the tv spot, click here

The trailer is targeted towards, I think, teenagers and above. The idea looks like it was to prove that this isn’t just your average Pixar or Dreamworks animation movie. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE many of those films! But some people may wrongly associate anything animated or cartoon looking as being intended for just children and whatever parent gets stuck taking them. Tintin is intended to appeal to all ages.

The trailer shows a good amount of the action that we can expect from the film. Truth be told, ”The Secret of the Unicorn” was not the most action packed album in Hergé´s ”canon”. And even if every single thing was maintained exactly as he painted the book, the movie would still be fairly short. I’m just glad that what they’ve inserted seems to fit in with the world Hergé drew. The locations and things thrown in were designed to make Tintin fans feel at home and remind them that while the action they are seeing (which looks AWESOME by the way) is a classic product of Hollywood and specifically Spielberg, it’s still all happening in Hergé’s world and to his characters as a few action packed extra pages of the original stories that I think even Hergé would be proud of. Still,some understandably see this and ask themselves ”what is THAT doing THERE?”. I see where you are coming from but I think you’re missing the point. Those moments are just supposed to enhance the experience,especially for Tintin fans. The average movie-goer, while perfectly capable of enjoying the movie, will never see everything in the movie that we will see.

Our first blurred look at the pirates. It looks like the flashback is in for worse weather than the version we know had. I have been looking forward to this scene for years…when it ends in the movie I may almost cry. When the movie itself ends I don´t know what I´ll do…

I love how fast the camera moves here! The virtual computer cameras suited this movie well as Tintin is almost hit by a car.

Whatever Tintin’s looking at, it isn’t good. Parts of Tintin’s face, while mostly the same, somehow have changed since our first Empire picture. They almost seem to change from image to image, expression to expression. I can’t wait to see him throughout the whole movie. It’ll almost be like spenidng 2 hours with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time…

I´m not sure where this is. Brussels? Maybe Morocco? Wherever it is, a huge crane is about to fall on Tintin, Haddock and even the Thomp(s)ons. How does a crane just fall down?

There it is, in Omar Ben Salaad’s palace. This looks quite different from the videogame setting for this Unicorn.  The weird abstract art on the left reminds me of Hergé’s love of that style in his later days. He would have appreciated that.

This looks incredible! It’s way darker than the original battle and looks an awful lot like Pirates of the Caribbean. But I think that is a good thing. That’s what I always wanted it to look like. Nice job on the water! I’m curious how all that fire got there from the cannon balls, but I’ll admit it does look cool…

What a view of Omar Ben Salaad’s palace! Look at the detail! Beautiful. I want to live there…

I love the look of the mountains, the lighting, the general feel of the shot…Very real looking camels by the way.

I´m not even going to try to guess the exact context of this scene. I just think it’s typical, Tintin all ready to crash through the bush and  Haddock hanging half way out getting clobbered…

Apparently I hadn´t noticed the parachute on Haddock´s back in the shot we saw before in the other trailer. Silly Haddock…I hope this movie teaches kids not to get drunk or they might grow up to climb on planes and nearly get shocked to death or chopped up by a propeller. While they are learning, we can just sit back ,try to put the bizarreness of the situation aside, and laugh. Or is the bizarreness what makes it funny?

This is my own attempt of trying to make Tintin look more photogenic from this angle than he did in the recent gallery. While not perfect, it’s at least better I think than the last shot. You really have to see him moving. My favorite is still that French bread wallpaper of him screaming with Snowy. That’s my Mac’s wallpaper by the way…

”Uh-oh! It’s broken!” (Is this before his parachute goes off? Does he take it off?)

Personally, this was my favorite part. I was left watching the screen with my mouth open as Tintin’s motorcycle suddenly becomes a unicycle in midair. I just think that is the coolest idea, and what a cool angle too! I can’t wait to see this part!

But what really got me was the miraculous landing on the rope sort of like Jack Sparrow would do that prevents Tintin from being killed. Just his luck! In any other movie it might seem ridiculous, but in this one it just looks amazing. I was left wanting to see more. I hope many others were too.

Who would have thought that so much could be packed into just 30 seconds? You hardly even pay attention to the lines, which I won’t to say sound like they are mostly quotes from the other trailer anyway, not that I know German. If anybody finds this, or anything else like this, in another language, please let me know. Great find Kalli!

I’m so jealous of you europeans. I’m still debating on how much of your comments to read after you have all seen the movie and love it or loathe it…We’ll see…

Sony Classical has revealed that the movie’s soundtrack will be released the 24th of October, which happens to be exactly one month away. It also coincides with the European release date for the film. Can you believe the movie will be out in a month!!!???

I can’t, unfortunately, because like a lot of you I am not in Europe right now. So while the movie’s soundtrack released along side the movie may not be a big deal for you guys (I understand, many of you wanted it SOONER), it’s a big deal for those of us overseas who won’t get to see it until at least December. By the way, I have no interest in getting in any trouble at all with Sony Classical, Moulinsart, etc so please do not post any comments on the site in a month that say anything like ”You can download the soundtrack here for free!” or ”Watch the movie here!” ”Legal” or not, I don’t want to take any chances. However, as we get this close to the movie’s release, I’d expect a lot of merchandise overseas to be coming out! So if you see anything over there, feel free to mention it or post a link in the comments!

If you’ve been around at all you’ve seen this kind of thing happen before, especially with comic based movies. When a huge movie like Transformers or Thor comes out, other DVDs come out with them trying to remind the public that there were other shows or movies based off of those characters years before the blockbuster was made and to convince the public that it’s worth you spending your money on those other versions too. Generally I just ignore them.

But if you happen to be a huge Tintin collector and still don’t own Tintin and the Blue Oranges or Tintin and the Golden Fleece, this is your lucky day. Now you can buy both in the same set…on Blu-ray disks! I have no idea why it would be better to buy them on Blu-ray disks than on a normal DVD. It doesn’t sound like they’ve improved the image quality or the audio (who knows?…Maybe…). I think they are just trying to bring back the old and see if some more people buy it in a new format. Now, I have actually never seen the two movies. Generally I’ve heard that the Golden Fleece is better than The Blue Oranges. I’m interested in watching both, the first because of it’s story line and the second purely because it’s set in Spain, where I normally live. But call me old fashioned, I don’t yet have a Blu-ray DVD player. If you’re interested, you can buy both together on amazon. I have no idea if they have been dubbed in English or not, I would love to know. They probably have subtitles at least. If I get a Blu-ray player, it’ll probably be to get  ”The Secret Of The Unicorn”next year.

Cool find Britto!

As far as I know the last time we saw Tintin in a board game, he was on the board running across the globe with Snowy and his friends. This time he’s just standing on it on the cover. The Tintin movie will not only have it’s own official videogame, but an official board game as well. I have no idea what the rules are, but I do know enough french to understand that the cover says ”Will you be capable of discovering the secret of The Unicorn?” and that there is a pick up and discard pile. The subtitle on the box makes it sound like it might be a sort of mystery game, maybe a bit like Clue, but everybody picks up and discards cards and does something with these little boards. And it looks like the pickpocket will stop you at some point or another. I’m certain that the picture below is not the finished game, because nearly every image you see in it is one of the images from Empire, and the blue deck of cards on the left even has that terrible picture of Tintin running with the white covering his face! I’m not sure why, since they hae the same picture of him withhis face on the box…

Those who prefer card games haven’t been left out. The Tintin Movie will also get it’s own special deck of cards. I like the look of the street sign on the bottom left that says Labrador Road on it. The concept art on the cards adds a very old fashioned Indiana Jones kind of feel to the game that reminds you that Tintin doesn’t just whisk you away to other places, but to another time as well.

Thanks Britto for pointing these games out. Also, the Plastoy figures are for sale here on amazon. A bit more expensive than I was hoping for (amazon often is…), but at least they are out there for sale online for all interested in buying them who would not be able to find them near where they live. I’m still hoping some more toys come out and hit the stores here in the US in a month or two.

One of the recent pictures released with the rest of the brand Captain Haddock. Since we were all busy looking at the more than a dozen new images, we may not have spent as much time looking at the familiar looking Haddock shot. But a few people did and made an excellent observation: Weta has done a really good job making the characters look better since the Empire issue came out. Here’s the picture of Haddock from last November:

And here’s Haddock from the other day.

The last image’s lighting is so much better! And Haddock looks younger than he used to! Those grey hairs on Haddock’s beard have disappeared, and his skin is much smoother now. The cloth on Haddock’s sweater looks much better than it used to. And there’s less of a shadow over Haddock’s sad eyes. A few random things are different in the background too, like the transparent shadow of some wine bottles on the wall to the left.

While Haddock’s expression took me by surprise when I first saw him ,I really loved that first image when it came out. But I love this new one much more because it shows just how hard Weta has been working to improve each frame of the movie. Keep up the good work guys!

I was so caught up in the great images that website had, which we’re now pretty sure is a Czech site, that I missed some cool information they had…a list of the movie’s cast that included Sakharine-not the rumored ”Rackham” character- to be the main villain. Since Google isn’t the greatest of translators, I’ve taken a few liberties in slightly changing it’s translation so that it makes sense in English. Here’s what the site had to say:

Ivan Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig): A ruthless criminal with a mysterious past and an evil plan that puts the life of Captain Haddock at stake. He is determined to get Tintin’s model of the Unicorn-at any cost…

This confirms it. A long time ago I asked somewhere if we had any real proof for the rumor that ”Rackham” was the main villain. We didn’t really have anything official. I think it came about because people knew Daniel Craig had a major part and could not only show up in a flash back if he was to run into Tintin in the film. So they proposed that he was Rackham’s descendant. It seems they were right about that too, since that has to be the ”mysterious past” they refer to. But we had assumed that if he was Rackham’s descendant, he would still have Rackham as a last name.

Somehow they are going to try to convince us that Rackham had a kid who was the great great great…great grandfather of a guy named Sakharine Ivan Ivanovitch. Also I’m not sure how they’ll pull off such a russian sounding name while the villain has a british accent. But few people watching the film will notice such things, and they aren’t really big deals anyway. Of course they can be explained, we just aren’t sure how. I’ll leave it as a mystery to be revealed when the movie comes out, because I’m not about to make another erroneous guess about this villain…

In the albums Sakharine is just a harmless ship collector that adds a bit of intrigue to the story when Tintin finds out somebody else has a ship exactly like his. Tintin does accuse him of having stolen his ship, one of the only times in the albums Tintin is wrong about a villain. In the movie adaptation the writers have turned Sakharine into a combination of the craftiness of the Bird brothers and the fun idea of people being or pretending to be descendants of Red Rackham. He even looks the part: he looks sly, and yet sophisticated. And he even looks a lot like Red Rackham, if you look closely in the albums.

He is a venerable villain for sure. Maybe even more so then the Bird Brothers were. I’m looking forward to see what such a character will add to the story. I’m not at all upset that they changed that part of the story.

The page also revealed a bit of info about Castafiore’s appearance. We really had no idea when she would show up.

Bianca Castafiore (Kim Stengel): Diva of opera, sometimes referred to as the “Milanese Nightingale,” that during a private performance at the Palace of Omar Ben Salaad inadvertently becomes the main weapon of Sakharine.

This should be interesting. Will she be kidnapped? That would be very much like ”Tintin and the Picaros”. I’ll admit she never was my favorite character, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with her in the movie.

Thanks Britto for pointing out the stuff I had missed on the site.

Congratulations brou for finding this amazing treasure trove of shots from the movie! I can’t believe how many there are! The weirdest thing is it’s from a page in a language that I’m not even entirely sure I know what it is! Some sort of Russian or something..maybe?  Anyway, with this many images from the film, the page could be in Swahili for all I care!

Not very many of these are familiar angles, but there are a few. It’s not hard to see Daniel Craig’s face hidden under all of the animated skin. Allan actually looks scared here, which isn’t common for him. The guy on the left, who we’re pretty sure is named Rackham, is definitely in charge.

Wow, this is a cool shot. In many way it’s parallel to the last shot, with Haddock gripping Tintin much like Rackham does Allan in a long hallway with a light at the back. I love the blue light in the background. I think this is a pretty good shot of Haddock. As fun as it is to see Haddock in rage, crying, or making some other silly face, it’s nice to have a few shots where Haddock doesn’t look quite as emotional.

In case your preference is silly Haddock faces, Serkis didn’t disappoint. I’m…not quite sure what to make of that face. I think Tintin looks incredible though. His eyes look very scared that whoever they are hiding from at the moment might hear them or find them. Interesting shot of Snowy’s front legs too, we don’t see Haddock hold Snowy very often. If ever…

This shot isn’t my favorite…Haddock looks slightly blurry, and Tintin doesn’t look very photogenic in this shot. I’m sure it looks great when it’s all in motion and he’s focused on flying while yelling at Haddock at the same time, but the face they froze looks kind of unnatural. I do like how claustrophobic they make the inside of the plane feel and how they show the awful storm going on right outside. This situation they’re in would have been a nightmare.

This looks like the shot from the trailer. You have to love how close they kept the parchments to the original parchments in the album. Even ”the Eagle’s cross” is still there.

What are they looking at? Tintin looks very surprised. Snowy looks curious.

We’ve seen this angle before…but Haddock looks more sad in this picture. It just goes to show you how quickly these character’s change their facial expressions. It’s best to watch them in movement to get the full effect.

Wow…I know some people don’t like it that Haddock has a bazooka/rocket launcher/ whatever it is, but I think this picture is hilarious! And pretty cool! It’s funny to think of how little Haddock knows about shooting weapons like that, and how much better Tintin would have been at it, yet somehow it was Haddock that wound up in the little sidecar. Snowy seems to be looking at Haddock with a face that says ”Are you kidding me?” From the video game trailer it looks like they will switch places at some point half way through the ride. That should be fun to watch…

Hmmm…Rackham is at Marlinspike, and poor Tintin is in trouble. There’s Nestor in the back looking as much like Nestor as ever…

Le Petit Vingtième! It’s only fitting that one of their newspapers would make it in the movie! This is one of my favorite shots so far, I love how much effort Weta put into this. I wonder what Snowy is looking for?

Another desert shot! Haddock must be about to dive into a mirage. Wow, the sand looks magnificent…

Never has Allan looked more evil. I can almost hear him yell ”Go get ‘em!”

This one’s beautiful. Look at that sky in the background. This must be the night they escape. At this point they think they are free, and it looks like somewhere along the line they picked up a tourist flyer advertising Baghar (there’s another image later that shows this) that they might be able to row to. Tintin’s face, while slightly unnatural in that pose, looks like he has a plan and is trying to convince Haddock of it or something.

Another shot from the trailer. I hadn’t noticed Snowy has Haddock’s hat.

Beautiful shot of the Thom(p)sons…Tintin’s face looks great too.

Another shot of the boat at sunset. The little tourist flyer might be all Tintin has to go on later to get to Baghar( I think that’s the city they go to?).

Another trailer shot. Ok, so there were more than I thought…It’s still a great shot of Tintin and Snowy.

Here’s, in my opinion, one of the best shot’s of Snowy we have so far.

The sequel to one of the shot’s we saw from the article in Empire. I love how great this looks, and how dangerous this scene feels. Poor guys! Shot at on a boat, then chased down on a life boat, then trapped in a seaplane in a storm, and then trapped in a desert with no water! This is going to be a great movie!

Source: http://www.falcon.cz/film/tintinova-dobrodruzstvi-tajemstvi-jednorozce/videa

At least in Germany and France, as we saw with the website I posted back a few days ago, Peugeot teamed up with the Tintin movie to advertise its company. There have been several advertisements I’ve seen around the internet, but as far as I know this is the first commercial. Great find, Caleb!

The add looks a lot like the ”find 50 things” game on their site. I think it’s a great add, especially for France.It’s easy to imagine more than one french person sit up from their sofa and yell ”Hey! It’s Tintin!” and catch each reference to one the albums represented. Certainly a Tintin fan made this commercial. It’s fun for any tintinologist to watch.

I must say though, with all due respect to the makers of the commercial, that this video reminds me of why motion capture was such a great medium for Tintin. I much prefer the Thompsons as we see them in the Spielberg film to the live action Thompsons in this video, and I have yet to see an actor play Tintin that doesn’t look even just slightly too old for the part. I’m very happy with the way the movie looks from what we’ve seen so far.

There is one major benefit to my being in the USA the rest of the year. While of course I’m bummed out that I have to wait longer to see the movie, I am now in the unique position of witnessing first-hand the advertising campaign for the film here in the States. Today was one of those few great days when instead of having to look news up on the internet, something related to the Tintin movie just came to me. It was in the coupon section of a newspaper, advertising ”Dog Chow” and ”Little Bites”.

Snowy looks really good here, tearing back the red page to reveal the prize you could win…an adventure cruise. I haven’t seen these bags in stores, but I don’t have a dog so I really haven’t been looking. It’s a good sign for the movie over here that Tintin is being advertised in September when the film won’t come out until almost Christmas. Also, this was one of the only coupons in the newspaper that took up two pages.

What I found most interesting is that treasure chest there. It looks like something Weta made. While it COULD have been made only for advertising purposes, there’s also a chance that there really is a giant chest full of gold coins somewhere in the movie. Remember Tintin’s mention of ”one of the greatest treaures in all history”? Maybe this is it, or part of it.

By the way, I just had to point out that I thought it was hilarious that the advertisement actually had to clarify in the fine print that ”gold is not an actual prize”. What times we live in…

Checking to see if there were any Tintin news online while I was hungry was definitely not a good idea. Tintin’s been many places before, but as far as I know this is his fisrt time to make it on a popcorn bag! I honestly don’t know what countries they’ll be selling all this in, but I assume at least France as it was Moulinsart that revealed these pictures. If you buy a bag of popcorn and a drink it looks like you will also get a free little Tintin accessory for your cell phone. I especialy like the glasses with the movie poster on them. That would make such a great souvenir! I doubt they’ll be selling them at the IMAX theater I plan to go to though.