Friday, August 5, 2011
The Creepy Tin Tin Trailer
They wisely don't show Tin Tin's face until near the end, because he looks so creepy. This is the same animation technique that gave us that unintentionally disturbing movie The Polar Express. It's quite the collection of talent they've assembled for this film. Produced by Peter Jackson, directed by Stephen Spielberg, based on the comics by Herge and written by (get this): Stephen Moffat (Dr Who), Edgar Wright (Sean of the Dead) and Joe Cornish (Attack The Block). There's voice work by Daniel Craig and one of my geek heroes, Simon Pegg, but I'm afraid the whole thing just looks horrible because of the animation. Perhaps as an homage to Pegg and Wright the humans resemble corpses - they have no life, no joy and the backgrounds lack the beautiful primary colours that Herge always used. How could they have screwed up Tin Tin of all things? I dont know, I suppose you've got to blame Jackson and Spielberg, I guess it must be hard being surrounded by yes men all the time...
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23 comments:
I just don't understand the appeal, for directors, of motion capture animation. The joy of animation is that you can make bodies do anything, assume any unlikely shape, move any which way. Motion capture grounds animation in a specific reality, and who wants reality-based animation? Would you want a motion capture Daffy Duck? Thankfully, very few motion capture movies have been made, which would seem to indicate it doesn't have a lot of fans in Hollywood. The trailer just makes me want to see a live action TinTin or, better yet, a Pixar TinTin.
Cary
I was shocked. I assumed it was going to be a live action movie. Why make a cartoon and have it so lifeless and cold. The reason you read Tin Tin isnt for Herge's dodgy plots (Tin Tin in Tibet anyone?) but for his extraordinary visuals (Tin Tin in Tibet anyone...)
I wonder how many things really survive the translation into film. Not many, at any rate. Some are decent or okay--most are not, and very few are actually expanded by the interpretation.
Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series on television is turning out to be very disappointing. I'm not sure why such an attractive man as Rufus Sewell comes across so flat, but he does.
Of course, it would probably help if he sang.
Seana
And some - not many - are better...did you ever read Last of the Mohicans or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or Red Alert (the basis for Dr Strangelove)? Yikes.
I was actually thinking of James Patterson as a mediocre source of a decent movie featuring Morgan Freeman, who consistently transcends his material. But then I remembered that just today a woman showed one of my coworkers that Patterson had actually mentioned Bookshop Santa Cruz in one of his books. In Violets are Blue he has a character thinking how they had always liked Santa Cruz and then walking into Bookshop Santa Cruz with a sloppy piece of pizza. Closely observed, Mr. Patterson. Closely observed.
What can I say? The man's a genius.
Spielberg's creepy, dead-eyed Tin Tin somehow reminds me of his creepy dead-eyed aliens in Close Encounter.
Seana
You probably mean closely observed unnamed, uncredited Patterson minion and ghost writer.
David
And that was the technology from 1977, surely they could have come up with something better in the intervening 34 years? Or, you know, hire actors...
I can only hope that this was written before he became so humungously popular. Otherwise, it could be anyone woho came up with this piece of verisimilitude.
Trust no one.
To me, Tintin cries out for flat 2-D animation. Not live action or mo-cap. Alternatively, you could possibly do 2-D characters on a more rendered background, because a lot of Herge's backgrounds are nicely detailed. I've seen a couple of Japanese movies do that, and it works well.
It looks completely lifeless,you might as well painted a face on a balloon.I'd still go and see it mind you.
But,why with all those names involved does it look so bad?
They would have got Dom Joly for a smaller fee surely?
Or, you know, hire actors...
With Rise of the Apes coming out this weekend it reminds me of the story of the original Planet of the Apes getting a special Academy Award for make-up and when Stanley Kubrick pointed out that the apes in 2001 looked better he was told, "We're mot going to give an award for make-up to real apes."
Gavin
Yes, Miyazaki would have done a nice version of Tin Tin and having a Japanese director might have been a good way to defuse some of the unfortunate stereotypes in Herge's work too.
Paul
Its lifeless and disturbing. That cant have been what they were going for?
John
Its funny.
I remember seeing an interview with the guy who played Moonwatcher talking about how he spent days at London Zoo imitating the apes. He was a mime artist, but not one of those annoying ones in front of the Louvre.
Seana
Actually I'm being unfair. His early books are good.
Flibbering felicitations Stryker
Anon
Thank you.
Billions of blistering blue barnacles, but that young Tin Tin has a waxy look to him.
Peter
I'm also worried about the colour palate. Its in 3d so it'll be dim and impossible to see anything in there anyway and it looks like they're going all noir on it...
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You can get a much birghter, much more surprising, much funnier, and much more energetic Tintin story from one of Herge's books.
Instead of being lifeless corpses muttering and staring dead-eyed into other horrific zombie faces, you see lively, imaginative, snappy action which sparks the imagination.
Tintin's race for the moon was a beautiful piece of work because the art itself was so beautiful! Mo-Cap corpses and the constant thud of people being punched really belongs in the bin.
Forget the film - 3D, 4D or even 5D wouldn't save it. Buy the book.
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