Tintin/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Books

  • Animation Age Ghetto:
    • These books are often placed in the children's section in the library, and Nick Jr used to air the Tintin cartoons. Granted; this is a very mild example seeing as the books are probably "PG" rated at most, a rarity given their original target audience. However, this is a bit more of an instance where it's not "Too violent", "too gory", or "Too sexy" for children, as it is "Too complex" for children. Several of the books (Namely the first few and the last one) are actually political satire, something most kids actually wouldn't really understand. However, children could still enjoy many of them for the adventures, later (mis)interpreting the political satire and history nods as a Parental Bonus.
      • On the contrary, the CGI rendition of tintin is way too sexy for kids. *blush*
    • The upcoming movie is already getting outcries over it being "too violent for children".
    • In the artbook for the Spielberg/Jackson film, Jamie Bell (who plays Tintin) actually praised the cartoon for talking about more mature subject matter and getting him into the series in the first place.
  • Badass Decay: General Alcazar could fit in this category. He seems pretty badass until you learn who wears the brightly colored pants in his marriage.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: There are more than a few, but the Thom(p)sons finding Dr Muller's pills in the desert, taking them, and immediately turning funny colors and growing neon floor length hair deserves special mention. No real explanation is ever given as to why a formula designed to increase the explosive properties of petrol would cause these effects and the symptoms occur randomly again a volume later in space.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: The first book, Land of the Soviets, usually isn't counted as part of the series continuity by most fans. Tintin in the Congo is also not acknowledged by some, owing to the rather embarrassing elements of its storyline - although others grudgingly accept it as canon due to the fact that Tintin in America is actually a direct follow-up to the events of Tintin in the Congo.
  • Fashion Victim Villain: Rastapopoulos in Flight 714 is dressed in fancy pink-shirted cowboy garb. Hergé himself said that he wanted to ridicule him and make him a "luxury cowboy" (sic).
  • Freud Was Right: Any scholarly or academic analysis of the series draws heavily on Freud and psychoanalysis in general...and will claim that just about everything is a sexual metaphor.
  • Genius Bonus: Llamas are even-toed ungulates.
  • Growing the Beard: After the first two books, the series picked up in terms of story quality. Hergé himself considered The Blue Lotus to be the point where the stories really started to get good.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The references to "coke" in The Red Sea Sharks. At the time it was widely used to refer to as a derivative of coal, but nowadays "coke" usually refers to either Coca-Cola or cocaine. The latter interpretation makes Haddock's shocked reaction to Tintin's question if their ship is carrying any coke look particularly hilarious.
    • In The Castafiore Emerald, Bianca Castafiore gives Haddock a violent and ill-tempered pet parrot named Iago.
  • Ho Yay: Tintin and the Captain, and less obviously, Tintin and Chang from The Blue Lotus and Tintin in Tibet.
  • Internet Backdraft: Has your heater conked out on a winter day? Praise or denounce Tintin in the Congo.
  • Memetic Mutation: "HA HA HA, OH WOW"
  • Mr. Fanservice:
    • Tintin's fandom is growing by the week. Just look on Deviant ART.
    • Captain Haddock, Chang, Skut, and General Alcazar also have several fangirls, judging by Deviant ART and some online forums.
  • The Scrappy: Jolyon Wagg is considered annoying by both the in-universe characters and the readers.
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Young readers who have seen many adventure comics/cartoons find Tintin to be cliché.
  • Shipping: In the draft of Alph-Art that Hergé left incomplete upon his death, Tintin investigates the murder of an art expert and initially accuses the victim's assistant, Martine Vandezande, of being in league with the killers. In Yves Rodier's unauthorized ending, Martine invites Tintin to meet her parents over dinner. Fortunately for the sanity of Tintin fans everywhere, Rodier didn't show whether Tintin accepted or rejected the invitation.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Tintin's fashion switch from plus-fours to jeans in Tintin and the Picaros did not please hardcore fans.
  • Values Dissonance and Unfortunate Implications:
    • Usually trying to be averted, but if there is some, it is there BIG TIME. For instance, Tintin in the Congo. Where he does everything dissonant known to 21st century man: Blowing up a rhino by drilling dynamite holes into it, shooting an ape to use his skin as camouflage, all the way down to teaching native children imperialist Belgian ideology. Fabulous, eh?
    • Or portraying Japanese as many a big-toothed Jerkass in The Blue Lotus.
      • The Blue Lotus is set during the Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese occupation of China. Given that context, its completely justified. Note that the Chinese are not caricatures at all, but treated with respect and compassion.
    • Or about everything in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
    • Or in The Shooting Star, where Tintin's expedition's nemesis is a certain American industrialist called Blumenstein. In the later versions, the country was renamed Sao Rico and Blumenstein was renamed Bohlwinkel (which actually doesn't make it any better).
    • Or (apparently) Tintin landing in the British Mandate of Palestine in Land of Black Gold, as it was replaced with a Qurac-esque nation in later editions.
    • Note that The Shooting Star was written when Belgium was under Nazi occupation.
  • Villain Decay: Rastapopoulos to a tee. In his earlier appearances, he is a powerful, deceptive and menacing Chessmaster. Flight 714 sees him reduced to a pathetically short-tempered pink cowboy who can't think even one step ahead (he's still pretty evil though, as he is quick to tell us). His dragon Allan falls prey to this too, becoming nothing more than a dumb and cowardly henchman. Note that this was done on purpose; Hergé deliberately decided to ridicule his villains at this point.
  • The Woobie: Frank Wolff.

Nelvana animated series

  • Badass Decay: Emir Ben Kalish Ezab suffered from this in the Nelvana series. The comic version of the Emir did sometimes get emotional about things regarding his son, but was otherwise a guy who you definitely wouldn't want to mess with. The animated version on the other hand was such a simpering crybaby that it was frankly amazing that Bab El Ehr hadn't managed to overthrow him already.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The main theme.
  • Brazilians Love Tintin

Film

  • Americans Hate Tintin/Everybody Else Loves Tintin: Can be viewed either way depending on how you look at it. As a European comic book, the film can be interpreted as a case of Americans Hate Tingle, as the box office in North America left a lot to be desired. As an American adaptation of a European comic book, on the other hand, the film can be interpreted as a case of Germans Love David Hasslehoff, since most of the film's gross came from overseas.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced:
  • Award Snub: The Oscars ceremony that year included a rare five nominees for Best Animated Feature, but none of them include this movie.
  • Complete Monster: Red Rackham. He threatens to kill all Sir Francis Haddock's crew unless he doesn't tell him where he hides the treasure and even after Haddock shows him he has all the crew feed'em by sharks.. Also, Sakharine, unlike his comics counterpart, is shown to be more ruthless and greedy, willing to kill anyone who stands on his way in order to obtain the treasure of the Unicorn.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: From the trailers to the new movie, there's Sands Of Time and Sword of Omens by Audiomachine. With John Williams composing the score for The Movie, this is a given.
  • Fan Nickname: The shot of Tintin holding up Herge's drawing of him has been dubbed "Tinception" by fans.
  • Ho Yay: When Tintin trusts the Captain with their piece of the poem, the scene could be interpreted as nothing less than "You can't trust me with that!" "I'm sure I can. Just take it, and make me the happiest boy in Bagghar!"
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: In the original comics, Red Rackham's treasure is just the contents of a small chest. Today, that does not look impressive at all and certainly not enough to set Capt. Haddock for life with a large estate to keep up as well. So in the film, the treasure in The Unicorn takes up nearly the entire hold of the ship and was probably doubling as its ballast while it was there.
    • The choice was almost certainly made for the sake of visual impressiveness, rather than to match the inflation—even a small handful of 18th century gold coins in mint condition would be worth millions of dollars. The contents of the hold would make Captain Haddock the richest man in the world, even matching the loss of rarity value for the said coins!
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: This pretty much defines the reaction of the hardcore fans who got upset over the modifications of the books' storylines.
  • Uncanny Valley: Mostly averted, but Tintin looks off in some scenes and Snowy's fur doesn't move like it should.
  • What an Idiot!: In-universe; a very drunk Haddock lights a fire in a wooden lifeboat.
    • To make it worse, when Tintin points out what he's done, he tries to put out the fire. With whiskey.
    • Thomson and Thompson don't realize that Aristides Silk is the pickpocket, even when they're inside his apartment surrounded by his wallet collection. (This is in contrast to the comic, where after Tintin clues them in on the cleaner's mark sewn into the pickpocket's coat, the detectives track down Silk using good old-fashioned legwork.)


Other adaptations

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