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.

The gameloft adaptation of the film for iPad and iPhone is 6.99 here
I haven’t played it yet to see how it is. Tintin looks a little bit funny in the picture there, but it is an iPhone game and all the reviews on the site seem to be very positive. Good find Thierry! I will hopefully be getting this for Christmas…

John William’s long awaited Tintin soundtrack is finally up on itunes. I’m going to be very disciplined and wait until I see the movie to hear the theme for the first time, especially because I know William’s style and often times much of his music is best when accompanied with the images onscreen. But I most certainly will get this soundtrack, sooner or later. If you’re interested, you can get the whole thing on itunes for 8 pounds here.

I know it’s very easy to do in today’s modern age, and there’s probably even a way to do it ”legally”, but if you really want to get this soundtrack I recommend that you pay for it, it’s only 8 pounds. Perhaps you want to wait even for it to come out on a nice CD you can keep with the rest of your Tintin stuff and pass on to your kids. When that comes out I’ll make sure to post about it.

Good find, Trix!

source: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-adventures-of-tintin/id472784154

For years I’ve wanted to see a Lego Tintin. From what I can tell so far, the movie has not triggered nearly as many action figures and model toys as some other major action movies have in the past, and I thought maybe even more might be made for the sake of collectors. Instead we got Weta’s incredible but rather pricy collector’s figures and the plastoy figures, and recently the McDonald’s toys I am still hoping make it to the USA. It’s safe to say Lego isn’t making anything Tintin for this movie, but I keep hoping for the next one. In the meantime, these japanese ”nanoblocks” are rather interesting, actually based off of  the albums. I’ve only been able to find them online at very,very high prices, but they are cool, there’s no doubt about that.

Source: http://bitsnpieces-sg.blogspot.com/2011/11/nanoblock-tin-tin-collections.html

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.

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.

At least some of those books we posted about recently will reach the people of France and Belgium, with entirely different covers. And they have new images on them!

Here’s the one about the wallets and the pickpocket. I’m not entirely sure what Tintin is doing. He looks like he’s thinking, trying to see something in the distance, maybe a car driving away. He almost looks like he’s squinting, or maybe he looks sad…The Thompson’s pose is familiar to us by now.

Nice new look at the Unicorn in the desert. I really, really want to watch this on a big IMAX screen, the mist and sails flying out at me in 3D, sailors firing cannonballs at Red Rackham and slicing at each other on deck…Every time I see a picture of the Unicorn, it looks so much like THE Unicorn, I get tired of looking at it on the cover of a book or on a poster. It’s literally Hergé’s ship cut and pasted out of the albums. I’ve SEEN it on paper before! Now I want to see it really SAIL…

The same could be said for the Karaboudjan. This doesn’t look like the Karaboudjan. It IS the Karaboudjan! And I can’t wait to see it come to life. Tintin fans, even if you for whatever reason dislike the look of the character’s in the new movie, I really think you should go see it and enjoy it for the sake of exploring in three dimensions the world Hergé drew. In my opinion, Weta hasn’t been given enough credit for how wonderfully they’ve recreated Hergé’s worlds. Marlinspike…the ocean…the desert…How many times did Tintin take us to those places?  Now Spielberg and Jackson are letting Tintin take us there again, at least once more…and it all looks REAL without losing, somehow, Hergé’s cartoonish style.

So many questions have been raised about Tintin: Who were his parents? Why did he only spend most of his time with a dog for the first books? Why doesn’t he ever answer to a boss or write a paper? I think the questions themselves are out of place, because the stories don’t really focus on Tintin but on his adventures, on the wonderful things he did in the exotic places he took us to. So of course it was important that Weta animate Tintin’s world right. In my opinion they could not have done a better job. So if you somehow don’t fall in love with the character’s, the storyline, the jokes, the action or just the fact that a movie this good is coming to IMAX, I recommend you go and see the movie just to take a look around the Karaboudjan or crash land in the desert. It’ll be worth watching again and again…

Ok, this is for those of you who live in Europe: how many of you have ever seen an incredible Asterix chess board and thought to yourself ”Wouldn’t it be awesome if they made a Tintin chess set?” I sure did, multiple times, and now it’s coming out. I’m a huge fan of chess, and have a few of these themed chess boards that, while not really practical when it comes to actually playing chess, are lots of fun to collect. Like the Unicorn model, these are being released in French kiosks piece by piece (come to think of it, it’s funny that both a Tintin model ship and chess set are being released ”piece by piece”…). I don’t live in France, nor plan to, so I probably will never own this…but it’s just cool that it’s coming out, and is plenty of fun to look at.

Of course, Tintin would be the King!

I’m curious who the other pieces will be. If this were solely based off of the books, I would make Rastapopoulous the other king, but it will most likely be ”Red Rackham” as he appears on the Karaboudjan. Maybe Omar Ben Salaad will be queen…

I think the Thompsons would have made good knight’s or Bishop’s, keeping the board in symetry. But it seems Thomson is a pawn. That actually fit’s his character a little better…

Source: www.tintimportintim.com