Here’s a quick post to once again celebrate one more award for Tintin! ”The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn” recently won the award the Producers Guild of America for Best Animated Feature!Even if Tintin didn’t do so terribly well as it did in Europe over in the USA, it’s great to see how it’s being recognized as a great movie. Congratulations! Good find, Adesh!

Source:http://www.producersguild.org/news/81677/PRODUCERS-GUILD-OF-AMERICA-ANNOUNCES-2012-PRODUCERS-GUILD-AWARD-WINNERS-.htm

It’s been ages since I’ve tagged a post under ”rumors”, but it’s mostly because I don’t come across many believable ones. However, this one seems interesting, and should it be true I would love to know that this was the first site to publish the scoop. Mike Dutton, someone who frequently comments on this blog, recently left a comment stating that a friend of his told him of two men possibly trying out for Professor Calculus.One is John Hurt, the other is Sylvester McCoy.

Up until when I read his comment I hadn’t heard of either actor. John Hurt has played a number of roles and has won numerous awards over the years. He worked with Spielberg in ”Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, but it’s been too long since I saw the movie to remember a thing about his part. This has me wanting to watch the movie again, because his part in the film is allegedly very much like Professor Calculus. Here’s a random video off Youtube I found of him in a cowboy film.

Sylvester McCoy is best known for being the 7th doctor in Doctor Who, which might have pulled more weight in his being cast for the role if we had Steven Moffat writing the script. However, he has been cast in The Hobbit as the wizard Radagast. This part of the rumor seems very plausible because he will certainly spend a lot of time with Peter Jackson, the next film’s director. Here’s an old interview with Sylvester talking about Doctor Who.

I can’t say whether these rumors are true or not, this kind of news changes all the time. Whether it’s a joke or an actual inside scoop, I at least found it interesting. I haven’t seen (or remember seeing) enough of these two actors to say who I would choose as Professor Calculus, but if I had to pick based on the voice I heard in those two videos I would have to go with Sylvester. But of course these actors are very versatile and I have no idea how they’d really sound as Calculus should they try out.

Ironically, I think I would have picked John Hurt for Radagast the wizard.

Thank’s for the rumor, Mike! Keep us posted…

UPDATE: apparently the rumor started from this video on Empire’s site, an interview with ”Tintin 1” ‘s writers on who they mentally picture as Calculus: http://www.empireonline.com/features/tintin-2-five-things-to-expect/p2

All the years that this blog followed the movie, WETA was hard at work. A large portion of their work is visible in their new book ”The Art of the Adventures of Tintin”, but a lot of it is available for free on their website. They have a few very good videos you can watch showing the original footage of the actors, the early version of the digital characters, and the final rendered product. It really is amazing. Check out the videos here.

One video I HIGHLY recommend is a video that shows how they created the model Unicorn, and then made it a real ship. A virtual camera gives you a full tour of the ship! It’s the next best thing to actually being on board.

Other highlights are the video that shows each stage of designing the Morocco sequence and a section on the crane fight that shows Sakharine without any hair! (I think he’s actually more threatening bald…)

One thing I thought was interesting though was, as I watched the video of Haddock yelling at the seaplane, it sounds very much like he yells ”froglodytes!” instead of troglodytes…can anybody else back me up on that? As much as I love the movie, that blunder should make any tintinologist cringe… they need to make sure Haddock gets lots and lots of his insults in, in his usual outraged self. Out of curiosity I googled ”froglodyte” and apparently there’s a dark horse comic where ”froglodyte” aliens try to take over the world. At least if there had to be a blunder, the word still definitely fits in the context of an insult, and even falls within the comic book realm.

Thank you Clem’s for finding this!!!

The Golden Globe award for best animated film first appeared at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007, given to the 2006 film ”Cars”. Every year since then a Pixar film has won, with awards going to Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up and Toy Story 3. However, this year the award has gone to the controversial film that the Oscars weren’t even going to recognize as an animated film: ”The Adventures of Tintin: the Secret of the Unicorn”. I’m a huge Pixar fan, but after having followed this movie for so many years, it’s great to see it win such a great award. Spielberg, Jackson, the actors, the animators, and every single person that worked on the movie did an absolutely great job and the work paid off. Hergé would be proud that after so many low quality Tintin movies, the world has seen a Tintin movie that actually won a Golden Globe Award. Congratulations!

It’s interesting to note that every movie that has ever won this award also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, with the exception of Cars, which of all films lost to Happy Feet, a film that, like Tintin, used motion capture. So far Tintin has received 6 nominations from the Directors Guild in the four categories devoted to animated film, with three of the five in the Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Motion Picture category. Tintin stands a very good chance of winning an award this February.

As Spielberg took the award, he made sure to recognize all of the main actors as more than just the voices of Tintin and his friends. He finished recognizing Andy Serkis as ”the man of a thousand digital faces”.

Here’s the video of Spielberg receiving the award.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7hUpry7_YZs

Sources: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/6265469/Tintin-wins-Golden-Globe-for-best-animated-feature-film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Globe_Award_for_Best_Animated_Feature_Film

A few months ago blogs were resuscitating the old, old news that Spielberg and Jackson were planning on making a Tintin 2 and 3, but it’s been ages since Spielberg told us he was directing the first, and if the film did well (which it did) Peter would direct the second and Peter and Spielberg would probably co-direct the third one. However, in a recent interview Spielberg has said that he had so much fun directing Tintin, he’d love to do it again for Tintin 3. He’s also given us a little bit of a heads up as to how the stories will be combined in the next one, and while he won’t say what stories have been picked, they have apparently been picked. From Collider:

“I’m not going to say which stories have been chosen for Peter Jackson’s sequel because Peter and I agreed that we weren’t going to let that information out yet,” says Spielberg. “The script is now being written. It’s more than one book, but it’s not three books, so that means it’s two books. It’s two and a half books that we’re combining with The Secret of the Unicorn.”

“Peter will start working on the film this year,” continues the director. “When he’s done shooting The Hobbit, he’ll begin his performance capture work with the actors later in 2012, which I’m very excited about. And of course, I’m hoping I’ll be able to direct the third one. I’d love to do the third one because I had so much fun on the first one.”

Because of the way the last movie was left ”open”, I’m guess that half of a book he mentioned will be a part of Red Rackham’s Treasure. But unlike other websites out there I don’t believe that will be the name of the movie or the primary focus of the story line. Outside of ”Red Rackham’s treasure” there are two more books, and Horowitz and Kathleen Kennedy have both confirmed it’s not ”7 Crystal balls” or ”Prisoners of the Sun”. I think it’s very unlikely they’ve chosen the two moon stories (we haven’t even met Calculus yet), and that’s the end of Hergé’s two part albums. So, love it or loathe it, that means we’re going to see some more stand alone albums mixed into one movie. The only alternative would be to create about an hour’s worth of entirely new material. I liked how the stories were combined in the last movie, and I’m confident it can be done again. Unfortunately, Horowitz is faced with the venerable task of pleasing fans while pulling Tintin’s stories out of chronological order.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before they reveal the next albums to be adapted. We’ve been told the Thompson’s will have a bigger role in the next story (could that imply Land of Black Gold?). I’d love to see the Calculus Affair, or maybe something with Rastopopoulous. And I’d love to see the fat lady in the phone booth scene show up. somewhere, somehow.

One last thought:If Spielberg does direct the third movie, Peter will be left with one less movie than Steven. I’m not sure how the financial side of that might work out, but the ideal solution would be to make 4 movies instead of three. I think ”Destination Moon” would make an excellent Tintin 4.

About a month ago I was bummed out that McDonald´s was doing Alvin and the Chipmunks instead of The Adventures of Tintin, and mentioned that on this blog. I never dreamed I would get any thin out of it, but after reading my post somebody who occasionally comments on this site,Soheil, left me a message saying he had picked up a few and wanted to send me some! Of course I was thrilled and I promised him that, if he should send me those toys, I would definitely post about it. He was true to his word, and now I’m true to mine.

Soheil sent me three separate McDonald’s toys, all still in their plastic bags. The Thom(p)sons with a pencil and a ”briefcase” that folds out to write on, Captain Haddock with a frame that can hold puzzle pieces that make people’s faces, and Haddock’s spyglass with the Unicorn on the side. I felt just like a little kid again opening these and putting all the parts together! He even went so far as to send a few things not from McDonald’s, Red Rackham from the Moulinsart figurine collection! I was so glad to see that Soheil as I have a number of the figures in that series and it goes wonderfully with them on my shelf. The three new characters from McDonalds are just about the same size to stand next to them as well, and go together quite nicely. And finally, he even sent me two postcards, a very appropriate ”Secret of the Unicorn” album cover postcard, and a cool one made from a panel in Tintin in Tibet. I also have a collection of postcards framed on my wall, and these will go great with them!!! I’ve never seen the Tintin in Tibet postcard before for sale…

Thank you so much Soheil, I really was very, very excited when I opened this. It’s one of the best ”late Christmas presents” I’ve ever had. I love them all.

Here’s a picture of them all together. I had to upload the pic to another site (I’ve unfortunately uploaded more pics than wordpress can hold), and then copy and paste it into this one. I’m doing this on Google Chrome, so I hope other browsers can see it OK. Let me know if it’s not so.

Again, thank you Soheil! It’s great to see Tintinologists from all over the world comment on this blog and help each other out.

Up until not that long ago, your only chance of seeing a cool 3D movie in 3D was going to see it in when it came out in theaters. With the exception of a few DVDs that used old fashioned blue and red 3D glasses that, if the 3D worked at all, made it hard to take the movie seriously, there wasn’t much in the world of 3D DVDs. Almost just within the past year all that has been changing with new 3D TVs that work with glasses just like you use at the movies and 3D Blu-ray players to play everything from Thor to The Lion King in 3D…in your living room. Lucky for Tintin fans, that change came just in time for Tintin to be released in a limited edition 3D Blu-ray disc. Click here to check out it’s page on Amazon.
Of course I should say that it´s lucky for Tintin fans with a 3D TV and a 3D Blu-ray player, as not all of us have the money to spend on something so expensive. But at least, according to Amazon, Tintin on 3D Blu-ray DVD will only cost 17.99 pounds, not that much more (if more at all) than it will cost on ordinary Blu-ray disc. On top of that, the box says it includes a 3D Blu-ray disc AND a normal Blu-ray disc. So if you´re thinking of buying it for Blu-ray, which if you can I would highly recommend, you probably want to pick up this ´´limited edition´´ copy. Even if you don´t have a 3D TV (like me) you´ll at least have a copy of it in 3D in case you ever do get one. Maybe some friends of yours have 3D TVs or might get one and you can watch Tintin at their house.In any case, it would be a pity to want it in the future and not have it and have to fall victim to the people on Ebay that could seriously overcharge you for this kind of thing. Or maybe (hopefully) the disc will hang around and be easy to buy in stores or at least online so that, when and if the year comes that we ALL have 3D TVs, Tintin is a part of our collection.
Of course, if you don´t like the 3D in the movie or just 3D in general this isn´t huge news for you. But maybe at least this will be: in France a special limited edition set of the blu-ray disc, DVD disc and a Snowy figurine will be sold in a box for 50 euros. The figurine is currently being sold at Weta´s site for 40 dollars, so you save…well, not all that much. But at least you can get it ordered from Amazon for probably lesser shipping costs. You can check out that page here.

I spent the better part of this morning creating this quiz. Start the New Year taking a quiz over your knowledge of Haddock’s insults. For those of you who wanted more insults in the movie, here are some you probably don’t even remember were in the books. Have fun and please don’t use Wikipedia until after you’ve finished the quiz.

Captain Haddock’s Insults Quiz

I’d love to see how well you did, leave a comment and let me know if it isn’t too embarassing.

I was sitting looking at Tintin stuff on the internet and suddenly realized that the fat lady in the phone booth that takes shelter from the rain never made it in the movie! I guess she wasn’t really needed if she wasn’t missed until now, and I’m not sure were it would have fit in since Tintin never needs to ”call the captain”, but I still kind of hope that it’s a deleted scene somewhere on the DVD. If not, I would really appreciate it Jackson and Horowitz if you would please include that section somewhere in Tintin 2…
I wonder if the scene was deliberately cut out because there is really only a couple females in the whole movie with a name, and while that is completely true to Herge’s works it still might have bothered some people for the only other girl in the whole movie that Tintin talks to after Mrs Finch to be a stereotypical fat lady with her dog ”Fifi”.
Anyway, I guarantee I will laugh hard if it makes it into the next script…