Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24127 in DVD
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 5
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 5

Amazon.com
Following volume 1, The Adventures of Tintin returns for another 10 adventures on five discs. A Canadian production broadcast in the U.S. on HBO, the animated television series vividly captures the intrepid reporter Tintin and his colorful friends (including his dog, Snowy, the blustery Captain Haddock, the brilliant but absent-minded Professor Calculus, and the detective twins Thompson and Thomson) as they travel the world on adventures that mix action, mystery, and humor. The books were originally written in French by the Belgian author Hergé, but the DVD set includes both French and English language tracks as well as French and English subtitles.

The five discs feature two stories each. The Crab with the Golden Claws introduces Captain Haddock and his rival, Allan. Yet another "quest" adventure but one with deep emotional impact, Tintin in Tibet follows Tintin into the Himalayas in search of his old friend Chang. Chang had been introduced in the early story The Blue Lotus. Herge's first masterpiece, it finds Tintin in China during wartime. The Calculus Affair is often considered Herge's crown jewel for its intricate plotting and characterization in a story that returns to Syldavia and its conflicts with its rival Borduria. In Cigars of the Pharoah, Tintin goes to Egypt, though curiously he's old friends with Thompson and Thomson rather than meeting them for the first time. The Red Sea Sharks is another seafaring adventure. The Secret of the Unicorn was Herge's personal favorite, combining a puzzling mystery with a ripping pirate yarn about Haddock's seafaring ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, and his fateful encounter with the fearsome pirate Red Rackham. Red Rackham's Treasure continues the Unicorn adventure with a modern-day treasure hunt and introduces Professor Calculus. The Castafiore Emerald keeps Tintin at home, but in the company of the irrepressible Bianca Castafiore (the "Jewel Song from Faust," anyone?) and a fun locked-room mystery. Flight 714 is a far-out adventure that features many old friends and enemies in a kidnapping plot. Tintin and the Picaros is the final complete Tintin adventure, one that takes him back to San Theodoros and General Alcazar.

The animated series perfectly captures the look of the books, and each 42-minute episode has enough time to re-create the books' character and wit, though minor characters and scenes have been changed or removed (for example, the Blue Lotus is no longer an opium den and the slavery angle has been removed from The Red Sea Sharks). (The exception is Red Rackham's Treasure, which is only 23 minutes, 3 of which are spent recapping Secret of the Unicorn.) Tintin fans will love reliving these adventures, and newcomers have a wonderful discovery awaiting them. (Ages 7 and older: moments of peril, alcohol consumption, drug-related criminal activities, ethnic stereotypes) --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

Close, but no cigar...
I grew up reading The Adventures of Tintin, and they're nothing less than spectacular: great characters, thrilling plots, and an overall wonderful sense of adventure, friendship, humor and tenderness. Perhaps one of my fondest memories from childhood.

These French-Canadian animated series do try to be faithful to the original albums, but there's something missing. For one, they tend to be politically correct, so they skip most of the truly interesting moments (I would have loved to see "The Blue Lotus" in all its dramatic historical context). The comic strip was drawn mostly in the thirties, forties and fifties, when suttleties were not in fashion, and yes, there were ethnic stereotypes in it, as in everything else at the time. So what? That's part of its charm (see NOTE BELOW)!

Two, there's not enough time to tell these stories properly. The albums held the reader in suspense for hours; for a TV show to do so in minutes it's not possible. And it ain't the same.

Three, the series don't live up to their fantastic opening secuence, which promises something extraordinary. Those brief moments give the old Tintin aficionado the thrill he's expecting. Not that it all goes downhill from there, but the animation, although good, is no first class either. It would take a major DreamWorks production to achieve that. By the way, I heard Spielberg was working on a Tintin project. Any news? Someone?

P.S.: Watch out for several Hergé cameos a la Hitchcock throughout the episodes. He's the lanky blond gentleman with his hair combed in the middle.

NOTE BELOW: Hey, I'm Mexican and I don't get offended by "The Broken Ear"! In fact, I don't get offended at all! Not by Speedy Gonzalez, Slowpoke Rodriguez, Go Go Gomez, Jose Jimenez, Señor Wences or any of that stuff (maybe Pat Buchanan, but he also makes me laugh)! On the contrary, this P.C. cr@p nobody enjoys really gets on my nerves! How come you can get "Birth of a Nation" on DVD but not "Song of the South"? Isn't it nonsense?

LONG LIVE TINTIN
I got both Tintin DVD sets for Christmas and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I think I've seen each DVD, both in English and in French (it comes with both) at least 3 or 4 times. I love to watch them while I work or do stuff.

Anyone who knows anything about the history of Tintin knows that he evolves all the time. The books we buy today are not the books that were originally published, are not the original strips that were first published in the Belgian Catholic newspaper in which Tintin was born. Everytime Tintin was changed, he was refined- he became less naive, more politically aware, more worldly (as opposed to Belgian). Whether you think this is a good or bad thing is up to you.

While these DVDs are not identical to the comic strips, I appreciate them for a few reasons. First, they're good, clean entertainment. They bring Tintin to life in a wonderful way. Plus, they're a great way to practice my French. You can watch these in English or French with English or French subtitles.

When I visited Chenonceau, the chateau on which Moulinsart was modeled, they had a Tintin exhibit in one of the stables, and they were playing one of these cartoons, in French. It was great.

I highly recommend these for anyone who loves Tintin or who is trying to learn French in a creative manner.

You and your children should view these great stories
As a child, I grew up reading books by Conan Doyle and Jules Vernes. They spoke about amazing adventures in amazing places with amazing characters. On the lighter side of that spectrum, I read these Belgian comic books with Tintin the reporter, his dog Snowy and his best friend Captain Haddock. The stories are interesting and full of interesting characters globe-trotting around the world from book to book. To this day, I still have my collection of Tintin books at home. The research that went into the Tintin comic books seeking authenticity are subjects of a book by themselves (Tintin: The Complete Companion). The DVDs faithfully reproduce the stories from the original books. The animation is incredible in capturing the characters without loosing anything from the original drawings. The voices and the handling of the music evoke an European flair that is welcome for this type of animation. The only major drawback to the whole thing is the film-to-video transfer. It really doesn't do justice to the animation. First, the colors are a bit washed-out and seem to have a slight white cast around the whole thing. Secondly, the edges of things are not as sharp as they should be. Given the fact that the material now exists in digital form, they should've saturated the colors and sharpened the image somewhat, this is not a hard thing or an expensive thing to do. It seems to be an oversight, but in my mind, a costly one. Third, the packaging is well design but very flimsy. They would have done better with a litho-laminated sturdier paper board instead of the flimsy cardboard used (think, I-phone boxes). I would have easily paid five more dollars for better packaging materials.
In all, the stories are wonderful and worthy of viewing by the whole family. So while I'm in my family-kick, I will recommend this to everyone who cares for good story telling over "hyper-kinetic" offensive cartoons like some of the stuff found today in television.