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Description
!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Having just recently watched the 2011 CGI "Adventures of Tintin" movie, and being a fan of the original books by Herge, I find myself sort of on the fence as to my exact feelings toward the 2011 film. On one hand, I did find the movie rather entertaining and was pleased by the brief homage they paid at the beginning to the original creator's art style by showing a collection of caricatures featuring Herge's characters drawn in his style by a street sketch artist. However after a quick look at the original stories by Herge it soon became immensely apparent that this movie entitled "Secret of the Unicorn" departed more than a little from Herge's original storyline. In fact, its almost a complete re-write.

It would appear the story for the 2011 film is actually a blend of three separate Tintin adventures: "The Crab With The Golden Claws", "The Secret of the Unicorn", and "Red Rackham's Treasure"; the events of the first two stories actually having been separated by "The Shooting Star" in Herge's original chronology. Elements from the three films are blended together in a poorly conceived copy/paste fashion for the 2011 film, and that's not even taking into account the parts of the story which were completely made up!

In Herge's original write for "The Secret of the Unicorn", Tintin already knows Captain Haddock, having met him during the events of "The Crab With The Golden Claws", and when he buys the model ship of the Unicorn at the marketplace it's so he can give it to Haddock as a gift. Tintin does not become aware of the story about Sir Francis and Red Rackham until after visiting Haddock who relates to him the tale of his ancestor after finding and reading Sir Francis' journal. Barnaby was not an FBI agent in the original version either. He was a petty thug hired by the Bird Brothers (the true villains of the original story) to steal the ships and acquire the scrolls, and while the convoluted storyline wherein Sakhraine was portrayed as the villainous descendent of Red Rackham was indeed interesting, it is no where near what was in Herge's story. In the original story, Sakhraine was an immensely more minor character who served the plot only as a collector of maritime memorabilia who possessed one of Sir Francis' model ships. Short of trying to coax Tintin into selling him his model of the Unicorn at the beginning of the book, owning a Unicorn model ship himself, and being chloroformed by Barnaby later in the story Sakhraine's role in the original story was no where near as prominent. Frankly, upon finding out that Sakhraine was voiced by Daniel Craig who now serves as the modern-day James Bond actor, I highly suspect the filmmakers made the immense changes in this story just so they could give Daniel Craig a role more reminiscent of the films which are the major source of his success and fame. Tintin and Haddock also do not find the treasure until the end of "Red Rackham's Treasure", the sequel to "The Secret of the Unicorn" in Herge's book series.

Now I have a very good idea as to why they made such a tremendous departure from Herge's original works. The original Tintin adventures were graphic novels which lent themselves more to the tone and feel of the Peanuts and Encyclopedia Brown. They were effectively mystery novels in comic book form, but of course modern movie-going audiences don't have the patience or sophistication to appreciate a good mystery story that does not have an excessive amount of gunshots, explosions, and overly dramatized bullshit, so of course they said "screw loyalty to the source material" and altered Herge's story to appeal to adrenaline junkies, and if its an adrenaline rush you're looking for then you're in luck for the 2011 film does not disappoint there. There is plenty of gunshots, fisticuffs, explosions, an overly elaborate chase scene, a crane battle, and tons of manufactured character drama to hold your short attention span. The point at which the film does fail however is with the sense of mystery and intrigue that was characteristic of the original Tintin adventures. Whereas the original stories Herge wrote kept you guessing and would surprise you with plot twists you weren't expecting, after only about 30 minutes into the 2011 film you can easily guess the villain's motive and what the ultimate conclusion of the movie will be; making it rather unappealing as mystery story.

My other grievance with the 2011 film is with the portrayal of the main characters. In the Herge's book series, Tintin is a cool intuitive reserved young man with a strong moralistic mindset who only resorts to violence when absolutely necessary. This is in contrast to the 2011 film which took the approach I hate of beefing up Tintin's masculinity to the point of him being more bold and headstrong; taking risks the book version would have shied away from in loo of more clever stealthy, less fool-hearty actions. They also altered Tintin's character to make him more of a the stereotypical story-obsessed journalist driven by curiousty and the desire to get the good scope as opposed to Herge's Tintin who was driven by his strong moral fiber and who's journalistic profession acted more to fuel his intuitive nature to pick up clues and solve the mystery. In fact, you'd be well in your rights to mistake the book version of Tintin for a detective for how focused he was on solving mysteries as opposed to simply reporting them. The fact that he's a reporter is rarely ever even mentioned in the books and almost never focused heavily upon. The film's portrayal of Captain Haddock takes the wildly erratic hot-headed sea captain with colorful vocabulary that fans around the world adore and turned him into a drunk wishy-washy awkward pansy. While Haddock did have a drinking problem in the original book series, his love of booze acted more as a mild source of comedy than a legitimate handicap. About the only debatable handicap Herge's Captain Haddock had was his short-temper which would often lead him to making rash decisions which tended to complicate things for both him and Tintin. The only characters in the 2011 film who do appear to closely resemble their book counterparts are Thomson and Thompson, the accident-prone bumbling policemen who bear a strong resemblance to Charlie Chaplin both in appearance and utter buffoonish mannerisms. The strong connection of these characters to the book versions could likely be due to the fact they were voiced by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg from "Shaun of the Dead".

While initially surprised by the great liberties taken with the writing for the 2011 film, my surprise faded the instant I realized Peter Jackson was one of the producers of the film. Peter Jackson, a man who seems to have an annoying knack for trying to pass his fan-fiction off as being canon to the pre-existant works of other authors. I soon started to see the 2011 film for what it really is, a pathetic attempt by a George Lucas wannabe to take a timeless comic book character and retailor him to be equivocal to adventurous overrated macho men like Indiana Jones and James Bond. I now look at the homage paid to Herge at the beginning of the film as penance for the complete bastardization of his work. Can't wait to see how they're going to butcher the story for "Prisoners of the Sun". Honestly, you'd be better served to read the books or watch the animated series created back in the 90's. They really are far better stories.

Description
!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Having just recently watched the 2011 CGI "Adventures of Tintin" movie, and being a fan of the original books by Herge, I find myself sort of on the fence as to my exact feelings toward the 2011 film. On one hand, I did find the movie rather entertaining and was pleased by the brief homage they paid at the beginning to the original creator's art style by showing a collection of caricatures featuring Herge's characters drawn in his style by a street sketch artist. However after a quick look at the original stories by Herge it soon became immensely apparent that this movie entitled "Secret of the Unicorn" departed more than a little from Herge's original storyline. In fact, its almost a complete re-write.

It would appear the story for the 2011 film is actually a blend of three separate Tintin adventures: "The Crab With The Golden Claws", "The Secret of the Unicorn", and "Red Rackham's Treasure"; the events of the first two stories actually having been separated by "The Shooting Star" in Herge's original chronology. Elements from the three films are blended together in a poorly conceived copy/paste fashion for the 2011 film, and that's not even taking into account the parts of the story which were completely made up!

In Herge's original write for "The Secret of the Unicorn", Tintin already knows Captain Haddock, having met him during the events of "The Crab With The Golden Claws", and when he buys the model ship of the Unicorn at the marketplace it's so he can give it to Haddock as a gift. Tintin does not become aware of the story about Sir Francis and Red Rackham until after visiting Haddock who relates to him the tale of his ancestor after finding and reading Sir Francis' journal. Barnaby was not an FBI agent in the original version either. He was a petty thug hired by the Bird Brothers (the true villains of the original story) to steal the ships and acquire the scrolls, and while the convoluted storyline wherein Sakhraine was portrayed as the villainous descendent of Red Rackham was indeed interesting, it is no where near what was in Herge's story. In the original story, Sakhraine was an immensely more minor character who served the plot only as a collector of maritime memorabilia who possessed one of Sir Francis' model ships. Short of trying to coax Tintin into selling him his model of the Unicorn at the beginning of the book, owning a Unicorn model ship himself, and being chloroformed by Barnaby later in the story Sakhraine's role in the original story was no where near as prominent. Frankly, upon finding out that Sakhraine was voiced by Daniel Craig who now serves as the modern-day James Bond actor, I highly suspect the filmmakers made the immense changes in this story just so they could give Daniel Craig a role more reminiscent of the films which are the major source of his success and fame. Tintin and Haddock also do not find the treasure until the end of "Red Rackham's Treasure", the sequel to "The Secret of the Unicorn" in Herge's book series.

Now I have a very good idea as to why they made such a tremendous departure from Herge's original works. The original Tintin adventures were graphic novels which lent themselves more to the tone and feel of the Peanuts and Encyclopedia Brown. They were effectively mystery novels in comic book form, but of course modern movie-going audiences don't have the patience or sophistication to appreciate a good mystery story that does not have an excessive amount of gunshots, explosions, and overly dramatized bullshit, so of course they said "screw loyalty to the source material" and altered Herge's story to appeal to adrenaline junkies, and if its an adrenaline rush you're looking for then you're in luck for the 2011 film does not disappoint there. There is plenty of gunshots, fisticuffs, explosions, an overly elaborate chase scene, a crane battle, and tons of manufactured character drama to hold your short attention span. The point at which the film does fail however is with the sense of mystery and intrigue that was characteristic of the original Tintin adventures. Whereas the original stories Herge wrote kept you guessing and would surprise you with plot twists you weren't expecting, after only about 30 minutes into the 2011 film you can easily guess the villain's motive and what the ultimate conclusion of the movie will be; making it rather unappealing as mystery story.

My other grievance with the 2011 film is with the portrayal of the main characters. In the Herge's book series, Tintin is a cool intuitive reserved young man with a strong moralistic mindset who only resorts to violence when absolutely necessary. This is in contrast to the 2011 film which took the approach I hate of beefing up Tintin's masculinity to the point of him being more bold and headstrong; taking risks the book version would have shied away from in loo of more clever stealthy, less fool-hearty actions. They also altered Tintin's character to make him more of a the stereotypical story-obsessed journalist driven by curiousty and the desire to get the good scope as opposed to Herge's Tintin who was driven by his strong moral fiber and who's journalistic profession acted more to fuel his intuitive nature to pick up clues and solve the mystery. In fact, you'd be well in your rights to mistake the book version of Tintin for a detective for how focused he was on solving mysteries as opposed to simply reporting them. The fact that he's a reporter is rarely ever even mentioned in the books and almost never focused heavily upon. The film's portrayal of Captain Haddock takes the wildly erratic hot-headed sea captain with colorful vocabulary that fans around the world adore and turned him into a drunk wishy-washy awkward pansy. While Haddock did have a drinking problem in the original book series, his love of booze acted more as a mild source of comedy than a legitimate handicap. About the only debatable handicap Herge's Captain Haddock had was his short-temper which would often lead him to making rash decisions which tended to complicate things for both him and Tintin. The only characters in the 2011 film who do appear to closely resemble their book counterparts are Thomson and Thompson, the accident-prone bumbling policemen who bear a strong resemblance to Charlie Chaplin both in appearance and utter buffoonish mannerisms. The strong connection of these characters to the book versions could likely be due to the fact they were voiced by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg from "Shaun of the Dead".

While initially surprised by the great liberties taken with the writing for the 2011 film, my surprise faded the instant I realized Peter Jackson was one of the producers of the film. Peter Jackson, a man who seems to have an annoying knack for trying to pass his fan-fiction off as being canon to the pre-existant works of other authors. I soon started to see the 2011 film for what it really is, a pathetic attempt by a George Lucas wannabe to take a timeless comic book character and retailor him to be equivocal to adventurous overrated macho men like Indiana Jones and James Bond. I now look at the homage paid to Herge at the beginning of the film as penance for the complete bastardization of his work. Can't wait to see how they're going to butcher the story for "Prisoners of the Sun". Honestly, you'd be better served to read the books or watch the animated series created back in the 90's. They really are far better stories.