How many times has Hollywood destroyed our favorite childhood books beyond any recognition? Harry Potter, Cheaper by the Dozen, Matilda, The Three Musketeers… You would think by now they would have mercy and cease their imagination obliterating, plot squelching, adaptions, but no. Once again they have nabbed a treasure and they are not letting go. Of course, they will be leaving out all the best parts and replacing them with such utter inanities you can’t imagine (pun intended!) Whether I have watched it or not is irrelevant. We are discussing inevitability.
What specifically am I ranting on about?
Somehow (investigations into the leak are being reviewed) Spielberg got his hands on a copy of Tintin, and, deciding that he is not yet rich enough, proceeded to churn out another computer-generated blockbuster. For those of you with deprived childhoods, Tintin is an illustrated series (some would demean it with the term ‘comic books’) centered around a young reporter whose curiosity leads him on adventures all over the world, accompanied by his boisterous friend Captain Haddock, and his dog, Snowy. The books were originally written in French by the Belgian Hergé, but have since been translated into many languages.
While I can tell you that the English, Hebrew and French language versions each have their charms, it is the care and detail of the illustrations that really capture the reader’s imagination and curiosity for far-off places. Each book reflects Hergé’s lifetime of dedicated research into different cultures.
- Tintin, Captain Haddock and the Incas Have a Misunderstanding
On a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art I stumbled upon some artifacts that instantly brought me back to adventures in Peru among the Incas. A series of rectangular tunics were on display, the different colors, patterns and materials striking in their contrast. The Tintin book, Prisoners of the Sun, was amazingly accurate in depicting the various motifs, employing the correct distinguishing designs to indicate different classes and areas. The collection even featured some miniature tunics, the perfect size for the ritual effigies featured in Prisoners of the Sun.
- Met Miniature Tunic
Inca Effigies in Tintin
Unfortunately, it seems it is too late to save Tintin’s adventures at sea from the big screen. We can only hope Spielberg will spare his quests in South America, Tibet, Scotland, Egypt, China, the Moon…
And please, no one tell him about Asterix!
Poor Steven Spielberg! I’m going to assume that just a bit of this is over the top for effect, but it is quite effective! I have enjoyed reading the Tintin adventures. I can just imagine that the screen version on the big screen will NOT live up to the intimate charms of the original. Why? With all the special abilities of technology, there are some things that cannot be duplicated. First and foremost among these is the imagination. An art form that leaves something to the imagination allows us to exercise that part of our brains, something that is rarely called for these days. Don’t go to the movie. Enjoy the originals.
While I understand and sympathize with your point, I’m not quite sure I agree with your conclusion. Just because an adaptation is different, doesn’t inherently make it worthless. I actually recently posted a blog post on this concept. Adaptation is in itself a form of art. It requires a person to interpret source material and come up with a new system of presenting the same story. Sometimes it is possible to do this in a way that stays very close to the source. Most of the time, it is not. But these changes don’t have to be looked at as negative if we realize the inevitability of it. The most important thing to keep in mind is that adaptations are never, ever meant to replace the originals. They are simply a retelling of a story in a new medium. Inherently that means that it can not be the same as the source.
I second Professor Smaldone’s comment. As much progress as movie technology has made, the human imagination is one thing it can never successfully encapsulate.
There have been some noble feats. I’m not going to sit here and say that I find ALL movies remakes were so grossly unsuccessful, but I will say that not a single one has ever hit it on the mark. Why? Well, I think that despite the complex technology we have available today, movies simply cannot translate books into their language (even though many producers, Spielberg included, seem to think so). A lot of that has to do with the inherent difference between books and movies, which is that books are liable to interpretation on a much larger scale. What that means is that at the end of the day, Spielberg’s Tintin will be HIS interpretation of Tintin, which can be markedly different than MY interpretation of Tintin.
To go back to Professor Smaldone’s comment, I will also say that movies dictate what you are seeing. You cannot, for example, decide just that you want the main character to have blonde hair because the movie clearly illustrates that the main character actually has brown hair. That aspect of movies isn’t conducive to any progress in the creative realm (at least on behalf of the viewers. The creators of a given movie employ creativity almost religiously – provided that it’s an original and good movie, which, these days, is quite a long shot). The whole point of an imagination is that it’s unconfined. Movies are largely starting to erase all that, essentially placing limits on how and what to imagine.
I guess my last point is this – when you try to transform imagination into reality, something inevitably gets lost in translation because reality is almost the anti-domain of the imagination. It is precisely in opposition to reality where imagination thrives, which is what makes it a rather unfortunate thing to squelch.
There is no arguing that Hollywood adaptations never live up to the source material. BUT this does not mean that they are completely bad. If a person who is unfamiliar with the original Tintin comics decides to see the movie because they are fans of Spielberg’s film career, they may still enjoy the movie. Their enjoyment of the movie (or excitement leading up to seeing the movie) may prompt them to do research about the movie or about where Spielberg got his inspiration for the film from. This may result in the discovery of the original material, and thus gain the comic strips new fans. I’m an example of this with regards to Tintin (before I saw a trailer for the movie, I never knew about this famous explorer, but now I know all about the comic strip as well), but also with J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous trilogy and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Maybe the adaptations weren’t as great as the source material, but they DID open the door for me into a world I may have never explored otherwise. Adaptations benefit the art world, they don’t destroy it!