First Tin Tin review online

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135271

Sure they liked it. Nothing I've seen or read has gotten me excited to see this.

 

[Ubik]

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135271

Sure they liked it. Nothing I've seen or read has gotten me excited to see this.

Maybe you're dead inside.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

No. The story and characters look generic,. the animation is horrible, so much so that they won't even show us someone speaking in close-up, and the film has awfully bland, bright yet dull look.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

It's Tintin, not Tin Tin.

 

[Ubik]

And the animation is fantastic, not horrible.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

If that's so, why don't they ever show someone talking and their mouth moving appropriately at the same time?

 

[Owain Taggart]

We don't really know that though, do we? All we have to go on are the trailers. The European trailers are actually much better at showing off the movie than the North American trailers and even have a bit of talking in them, I think.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Yeah, our trailer actually ends with shot of some badass dude who is obviously talking, but instead of hearing him, at that very moment we instead hear Tintin say "we can't turn back, not now."


The movie looks awful. The animation looks flat and dreadfully uninspired. What humor we have seen is unfunny.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I want to elaborate on the comment I made about it being unfunny. There is a gag in the film where a guy trips on a dog, har har.

No, that wasn't the gag I wanted to talk about. There was a gag where they're on a life boat or some such thing. The old guy thinks that the plane that is coming is going to rescue them but instead they open fire. This gag is the kind of thing that would be in any Indiana Jones picture. It would work there but not here. Why? becaus the gag itself isn't really what is funny, it's our connection with the character delivering he line, that we know that person and their emotions. I know Indy, even after watching him for a whole minute I know him. The gag doesn't work with lifeless mo cap characters that feel like rejects from the Hardy Boys books in my basement.

 

[Canadave]

Jesus, did Hergé kill your dog or something?

And for what it's worth, that plane sequence is taken directly from one of the books (I forget which).

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

It doesn't matter. As shown, it's not funny. It should be at least a little funny but it's not. Gromit has more emotion than anyof these characters and all of them combined.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

...the gag itself isn't really what is funny, it's our connection with the character delivering he line, that we know that person and their emotions.

Tintin, Captain Haddock, and the other characters from the books are very famous through much of the world and many moviegoers in international territories already have the kind of connection to the characters that you're talking about with regards to Indy.

 

[Hound of UIster]

You do realize the Tintin GNs and the cartoon were available stateside.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

You do realize the Tintin GNs and the cartoon were available stateside.

Nevertheless the characters are far more famous and popular outside of the US, and I've seen a lot of Americans online - including on this forum - say that they had absolutely no knowledge of Tintin before Spielberg and Jackson went into production on this movie.

 

[Mach5]

CGI looks nice, but apart from that, it looks meh. I think I'll pass.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

...the gag itself isn't really what is funny, it's our connection with the character delivering he line, that we know that person and their emotions.

Tintin, Captain Haddock, and the other characters from the books are very famous through much of the world and many moviegoers in international territories already have the kind of connection to the characters that you're talking about with regards to Indy.

You missed my point entirely! I'm not talking about a character's reputation nor how famous they may be. i'm talking about the emotional connection an audience member has to someone on screen. When Indiana Jones takes the idol, and he has the look of self satisfaction on his face while fixing the brim of his hat, the audience knows him, they know everything they need to know about him. It's all there in the look, just him taking the idol isn't enough to make the scene work, it's how Ford connects us with the character. Also, when Indy gives the same look to his father after taking out the Nazis who were chasing them by motorcycle - and his father gives him a look of disapproval back to him - we feel something that elevates the standard chase material to a whole new level that makes it more about character; it becomes more than an action scene.

 

[Owain Taggart]

You do realize the Tintin GNs and the cartoon were available stateside.

Nevertheless the characters are far more famous and popular outside of the US, and I've seen a lot of Americans online - including on this forum - say that they had absolutely no knowledge of Tintin before Spielberg and Jackson went into production on this movie.

Yeah, that was one of my original fears about this, that because there isn't much American familiarity, that it becomes much more difficult to market.

 

[Canadave]

...the gag itself isn't really what is funny, it's our connection with the character delivering he line, that we know that person and their emotions.

Tintin, Captain Haddock, and the other characters from the books are very famous through much of the world and many moviegoers in international territories already have the kind of connection to the characters that you're talking about with regards to Indy.

You missed my point entirely! I'm not talking about a character's reputation nor how famous they may be. i'm talking about the emotional connection an audience member has to someone on screen. When Indiana Jones takes the idol, and he has the look of self satisfaction on his face while fixing the brim of his hat, the audience knows him, they know everything they need to know about him. It's all there in the look, just him taking the idol isn't enough to make the scene work, it's how Ford connects us with the character. Also, when Indy gives the same look to his father after taking out the Nazis who were chasing them by motorcycle - and his father gives him a look of disapproval back to him - we feel something that elevates the standard chase material to a whole new level that makes it more about character; it becomes more than an action scene.

So... you're judging a scene from the theatrical cut of a movie versus a very short clip from a trailer? I'm glad you're not a professional film critic.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Look, i've seen trailers that make me psyched to see them because somehwere in that two minutes, they allow us to look at a character, to understand that character, or to make us want to learn more about a character. That is not the case here. They all seem like the blandest versions of archetypes from old crappy pulp novels and comic books... and I usually like films based upon such material, whether it's Star Wars, Indy, the Phantom, the Shadow, etc etc, assuming that there is something that is on screen that seems to actually work to bring me in.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

I'm not talking about a character's reputation nor how famous they may be. i'm talking about the emotional connection an audience member has to someone on screen.

I wasn't just talking about how famous characters are, but the fact that such fame and popularity means that much of the international audience already has an emotional connection to these characters which they'll bring to the theater and which will influence their reactions to the movie. Whether the movie properly capitalises on that pre-existing connection remains to be seen.