I just remembered how much I hated Blogger. I mean, it automatically switches fonts (and font sizes) sometimes and you can't insert a picture where the cursor is (the picture automatically appears at the top of the page). Sure, those are only two problems, but Blogger still annoys me.
Anyway, I remembered yesterday, when I was thinking about the reception of John Carter by critics, another movie that I saw pretty recently that wasn't as well-received as I'd hoped it would be.
Anyway, I remembered yesterday, when I was thinking about the reception of John Carter by critics, another movie that I saw pretty recently that wasn't as well-received as I'd hoped it would be.
The Adventures of Tintin was liked by both critics and audiences around the world. While I did kind of expect it to happen, it was still pretty surprising how relatively poorly it was received by American critics and audiences.
Now, I hate it when people are like, "Oh, American moviegoers - of course they wouldn't know what to like. They just go see those blockbusters which don't require you to do any thinking." I go to see movies in theaters in America so I consider myself an American moviegoer. Like I said in the previous post, the best thing a movie can do for its audience is entertain it. Just because a film has a simple plot, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad. If it's entertaining, then it's alright with me.
I'll admit that I didn't quite like Tintin as much as I'd hoped to. I remember walking past the shelf that contained the series in my library quite a few times and I just decided, one day, to pick up the one that seemed to me to be the most interesting. I liked science-fiction so the one that I decided to read was Explorers on the Moon. I instantly thought that it was awesome. Even though Explorers is the second part of a two-part adventure (the first part being Destination Moon) I understood the story well. Of course, the stories are pretty simple because the series was made for kids.
I later found out that Tintin is one of the bestselling comic book series of all-time. The series is really popular in Europe and former European colonies (so basically, the whole world). According to Wikipedia, the comic book series, which was written and drawn by Hergé, is the second bestselling comic book series from Europe (only the Asterix (which has an accent over the "e" in French) series has sold more copies). Asterix, which was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo (and was written by Uderzo alone after the death of Goscinny)is revered in France, as you can probably tell by the cover of the book that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first volume. Actually, I do believe that in Europe volumes are called "albums." That's kind of weird, though. I mean, the word word "album" is typically used for collections of photos and also collections of songs, at least that's what I thought. Well, whatever.
Let me digress a bit. The first Asterix volume (or album) that I read was Asterix and the Laurel Wreath. It was on the same shelf as The Adventures of Tintin and it had a similar binding. I could tell that this book and the other Asterix books, were of a different series but I decided to try it out. I didn't even get through to the end the first time around. This was mainly because of the font, which was a strange kind of cursive. I tried to read it about a year later and I didn't have a problem with the font anymore. To tell you the truth, Asterix and the Laurel Wreath is probably the only book in the series that I like.
I don't know, the jokes get way too repetitive. They just beat up Roman legionaries and centurions a billion times and that's it. There are some historical references here and there that might make you smile if you get them but there isn't anything to laugh out loud at. For example, at the end of Asterix and Cleopatra, after he and Obelix have helped Cleopatra to build a palace, Asterix says to the Egyptian queen that if her country needs any assistance with anything else, such as building a canal, the Gauls can help. This is an obvious reference to the building of the Suez Canal, of course. When I first read Explorers on the Moon, however, I thought that it was hilarious. Pretty much every character besides Tintin and Wolfe (and the workers at mission control, who are worried that the mission will end with the death of everyone on the rocket) is humorous. There's Thomson, Thompson, Professor Calculus, Snowy, and of course, Captain Haddock.
Of course, much of the humor is lost in translation and the translators for Asterix did a good job with the impossible task that they were given. The jokes in Tintin don't rely on puns as much so the humor isn't lost in the latter series.
Alright back to Tintin the movie. When I first read that it was going to be in motion capture I was disappointed. I was hoping that it would be in traditional animation. After watching the theatrical trailer, however, I was stunned. But then there was another problem: it seemed that Spielberg and Jackson had decided to combine three books in this story - The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham's Treasure.
Oh well, I thought, it can't be bad. I went to the movie with my sister, who likes the series more than I do, and I thought that it was okay. I don't read a lot of books so I wasn't used to seeing how literature was translated from the pages of a book to the screen. The animation and artwork were wonderful, but there were so many problems that I could see.
Tintin had always been grounded in reality and the film just seemed too, um, cartoonish. I can still remember quite a few scenes but the most memorable were: when Captain Haddock (who I didn't imagine to have a Scottish accent) gets spun around on the propeller of an airplane, when Bianca Castafiore shatters the bulletproof glass case with her voice (I'm pretty sure that that can happen in real life, but still, it seemed somewhat cartoonish), when a tank drives through a building and drags it along a street, and the crane fight.
Still, I realized later that the movie was better than I thought it was. It's on my list of The Top 10 Animated Movies I've Seen. (I was expecting that it would be the best one I'd ever seen, though, you see.)
But I really was surprised at how the movie (technically) flopped in America. It only got $80 million on a budget of $135 million. It did pretty well overseas (in all, it grossed about $370 million) but America is where studios want it to make a lot of money.
What you might read online is just outrageous. The comic book series only has a cult following here in America so I expected that not a lot of people would not care so much for the movie when it first came out here, but still, I was expecting enthusiasm to pick up later. And when it came time for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to release the list of movies that had been nominated, Tintin wasn't even on the list for Best Animated Feature. There was some argument as to whether Tintin was an animated movie or not because it was made using motion capture. However, if people think that The Polar Express is an animated movie, then Tintin is one too. And I do believe that I saw Tintin on the list of legible movies. Not only was this snub seriously unfair, it also erased all suspense from the category.
I mean, seriously, who didn't think Rango was going to win? Rango was a tribute to the old Western movies. Of course the voters (who I assume are really old) were going to like it. It's like how Hugo was nominated for everything because it was directed by Martin Scorsese and it was a tribute to the old silent films that were made by Georges Méliès. I'll tell you the truth; I saw Rango and I didn't like it. I just didn't. I'd type more about it and the 2012 Oscars but this post is getting way too long.
Anyway, Tintin was alright. It could have been better but it was quite good.
Well, that's all for today.
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