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.
But you
are talking about fame and reputation, and I was just talking about what was in all the footage hat has been thus far released. Sure, it's subjective, but there is nothing I've seen that makes Tintin, Haddock, Snowy or anyone else stand out at all, to make me care enough about what happens. Less important is that I don't know enough about the adventure or the quest itself to make me care enough. No idea what the line 'a whole mess of danger" really means, no idea what the stakes are. But what I
do know is that Spielberg and Jackson both worked on it and it will be a motion picture event in 3-D because 1/4 of the trailers' screen time is devoted to letting me know that this is the case... kind of like a similar amount of trailer screentime for
Mars Needs Moms reminded us that Zemeckis worked on it and that it will be in 3-D, and we all know how many people actually
care about that film.