The Adventures of Tintin: the secret of the unicorn

ï ¿½ Amblin Entertainment, The Kennedy / Marshall Company, WingNut Films

The secret of the unicorn, which in the original French is called Le secret de la Licorne, is the eleventh chapter of the famous comic series. The adventures of TinTin, were written and illustrated by the Belgian cartoonist Hergè. Designed to be the first volume of a two-part story, the storyline of "The Secret of the Unicorn" has been expanded and continued in this adventure. The comic was made in June 1942 through the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, and was then published in a book in the same year. Hergè writes this book at a time when Belgium is occupied by Hitler's Nazi Germany, in fact it is the first book that tells the adventures of TinTin, precisely to avoid political issues. It is also known for being one of only two books in the series set in Belgium.

On October 28, 2011, the movie "The Adventures of Tin Tin - The Secret of the Unicorn", a film by Steven Spielberg shot entirely using the Motion Capture technique, will be released in cinemas. The film is based on three books by Hergè: the golden crab, the secret of the unicorn and the treasure of Rakham the Red. The film will be presented at the 2011 Rome International Film Festival, in the "Alice nella città" section. It will be released in all Italian cinemas from 28 October, while in the United States it will be released after Christmas, exactly on 23 December. The first trailer in the original language was released on May 16, 2011, while the Italian one on May 23. Hergè is highly sought after for his stories, because he ensures that the ships, buildings and features shown are based on real things. The secret of the unicorn remained one of Hergè's favorite stories, until in 1960 he wrote TinTin in Tibet, preferring it to all the others. The comic has been adapted in various media, such as a radio short story in 1992 and for two animated television series.

ï ¿½ Amblin Entertainment, The Kennedy / Marshall Company, WingNut Films

The plot revolves around TinTin, a young red-haired reporter, looking for new stories to tell. To be able to find them, he travels the world without an established goal, always in company with the inseparable dog Milù .. While touring a market in Brussels, TinTin buys a model of an old ship to give to his friend, Captain Haddock. Two strangers, Ivan Sakharine and a mysterious character named Barnabas, try to convince TinTin to get the ship, but he refuses. Returning to his apartment, he is very nervous and drops the model by breaking the mast. To repair it, he shows the ship to Haddock, who is amazed and states that in fact that model is of a XNUMXth century Unicorn warship, which was captained by his ancestor: Sir Francis Haddock. Shortly thereafter, the model ship is stolen and Sakharine is revealed to own an identical model, also stolen. Dejected TinTin returns to his apartment, where he discovers a rolled parchment under the furniture, on which there is the part of a puzzle that indicates the location of a treasure, so he realizes that it is better to hide it before someone finds it. He immediately informs his friend Haddock, who tells him how Sir Francis Haddock fought the red pirate Rakham in the West Indies, killing him and blowing up his ship. Haddock, taken by the heat, recalls the scenes of the battle in his apartment, destroying and turning everything upside down. Meanwhile, the mysterious character known as Barnabas roams around TinTin's apartment, but is killed by some unknown people. Later, TinTin is kidnapped by the same perpetrators of the shooting, they turn out to be the Bird brothers, two ruthless and unscrupulous traders who own a third model of the Unicorn. They are behind the theft of TinTin's model and Sakharine's parchment, knowing that only with all three scrolls can the location of the hidden treasure be identified. TinTin manages to escape from the Bird brothers' country estate, while Haddock arrives along with the police and Officer Thompson, who proceeds to arrest the two. The brothers have been accused of mugging and stealing a wallet, and once on the wall, TinTin and Haddock steal it from them. They manage to combine the three scrolls and discover the coordinates of the hidden treasure, starting to plan an expedition to reach it. There was a historical pirate with the name similar to that of Red Rakham, his name was John Rakham, better known as the captain of the ship on which the two female pirates sailed: Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

ï ¿½ Amblin Entertainment, The Kennedy / Marshall Company, WingNut Films

With the arrival of Captain Haddock, Hergè created the only character in the series to have a family and lineage. Only after the book was published, Hergè learned that Haddock really existed, an admiral who had served in the British navy during the late 17th and early 18th century. This Admiral Haddock was aboard the James Royal, the flagship who participated at the Battle of Solebay in 1672, the first naval battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. During the fighting, the James Royal is attacked and catches fire. Haddock managed to escape and save his life by jumping into the water, later his courage was recognized by the British monarch, King Charles II. Shortly thereafter, Haddock takes command of another ship, the Royal Charles, before becoming a naval administrator in his mature and adult life. According to historians, there was also another Haddock, who also lived in the same period. David Ogg reveals that this captain with his ship and crew would have separated from the rest of the battalion, in order to anchor in Malaga, in order to buy goods that they could then resell in Great Britain. For this action, Haddock was called to attend an admiralty court in 1674, where he was ordered to renounce all profits from the operation and was also suspended from his command for over six months.

ï ¿½ Amblin Entertainment, The Kennedy / Marshall Company, WingNut Films

To produce all the backgrounds and illustrations for the Secret of the Unicorn, Hergè decided to draw inspiration from a much wider variety of iconographic sources, such as newspaper clippings, a new technique, never used in any other previous TinTin adventure. He went to great lengths to present the Unicorn as a historically accurate and precise seventeenth-century warship by studying the plans of warships of that period found in the naval museum in Paris. As his primary influence for fictional craftsmanship, he chose a ship called Le Brillante, built in Le Havre in 1690 by the master Salicon and later decorated by Jean Berain called the Elder. He also studied other ships of that period, such as La Couronne or Le Reale de France, in order to perfectly understand the design of that century. To create his ship he was inspired by the Reale de France, as no ship had ever been listed in the annals of the French navy with the name Unicorn. For Sir Francis Haddock's fictional ship, on the other hand, Hergè takes inspiration from an English combat ship active in the first half of the eighteenth century. The Secret of the Unicorn, initially serialized on a daily basis, is then published in a 62-page book by Casterman Editions, in 1943. In 1952, Casterman published English translations of both the Secret of the Unicorn and The Red Treasure Rakham. In 1957, the animation company Belvision produced a series of color adaptations based on Hergè's original comics, adapting eight adventures into one five-minute-episode series. The Secret of the Unicorn is thus the fourth story to be adapted into small episodes, directed by Ray Goossens and written by Michel Greg, a well-known and appreciated comic writer, illustrator who in the following years would become head of the Journal de TinTin. In 1991, a second animated series based on the adventures of TinTin was produced, as a collaboration between French animation company Studio Ellisse and Canadian Nelvana. Thus The Secret of the Unicorn becomes the ninth story to be produced in a series of 42-minute long episodes. Directed by Stèphane Bernasconi, the series has been praised for being "perfectly faithful", as it is based on compositions taken directly from the original comic. The story of the secret of the Unicorn, was very similar to the previous adventures of TinTin, due to the use of color, content and style. All this in fact, leads Harry Thompson to underline that without any doubt it is a story belonging to 1930, believing, wrongly, that it was the last and best story of the mysteries of Hergè in a detective version. In all his analyzes, concerning the adventures of TinTin, the academic Jean Marie Apostolides identifies in the search for the treasure by the characters, a search at the same time for their roots.

Spielberg's film uses the Motion Capture technique, that is the "motion capture", which allows to study the mechanisms to capture the movement and the process to acquire a certain movement. To be able to acquire movement, it is necessary to use a stereophotogrammetric system, in short, a system equipped with multiple cameras that transmit red, infrared or near-infrared light, in addition to markers, which are small spheres of reflective material. In the field of cinema this technique is widely used for the special effects of many films, to be able to reproduce realistic movements. The computer creates a stylized image of the actor and reproduces his movements, which the cameras around him capture. Similarly, this technology is used in video games, to create the movements of the virtual characters present in the game with extreme precision and realism. This amazing film is directed by Steven Spielber, directed and produced by Peter Jackson. The project is expected to be a trilogy and the second episode, Red Rakham's Treasure, should have a green light after July 2010. Source: www.cartonionline.com

	Original title:	The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
	Country:	USA, New Zealand, Belgium
	Year:	2011
	Gender:	Animation, Adventure, Comics
	Directed by:	Steven Spielberg
	Actors:	Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Cary Elwes, Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Nick Frost, Tony Curran, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Sebastian Roch
	Production:	Amblin Entertainment, The Kennedy / Marshall Company, WingNut Films
	Distribution:	Sony Pictures Releasing Italy
	Exit :	October 28, 2011

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