So far, all we’ve gotten about the new Tintin film is some posters and a long teaser, which was notable mostly for hiding Tintin’s face until the big reveal at the end.
It was meant to show us some of the technology at work in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, but either they weren’t finished with the facial animations yet, or they simply didn’t want to show them off at the time, because we didn’t get to actually see anyone talking or even emoting.
I got worried that that meant it wouldn’t be very good, but my fears have been more than dispelled by this new long-form trailer, which gives almost two-and-a-half minutes of really great footage.
We get to see quite a bit about the plot here – something else we didn’t quite get from the teaser, though that’s to be expected, but the really impressive thing here is the look of the thing.
The scenery, the characters, the facial animations, the action effects; it’s all really looking great.
I’m most impressed with the characters. They manage to tow the edge of the uncanny valley, and use their resemblance to the actual comic book characters to create that sense of believability. The only one I’m not particularly fond of is Tintin himself, but I think after watching this a few times, he’s starting to grow on me.
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is about Tintin and his friends who find a map to spot where a famous treasure ship sank in the ocean. In typical Tintin fashion, they have to go through a bunch of crazy stuff to find what they are looking for.
The film stars Jamie Bell – that’s his face on Tintin, and is being planned for a Holiday 2011 release.
