MovieChat Forums > Destination Moon Discussion > Troubling similarities with Tintin

Troubling similarities with Tintin

posted 11 years ago by CaptainViggo
14 replies | jump to latest

I've been a huge fan of Tintin comics, and having just watched this movie, I've found it very troubling to see so much similarities between the movie and Tintin's two-part moon adventures "Destination Moon" (which shares the same title in english) and "Explorers on the Moon", two comics praised for their inovation and accuracy (for their time at least).

I know the movie is based on a Heinlein novel from 1947, which could have been inspiration for both, but in the same time I've seen articles saying that the movie is only loosely based on it. From people who have read it, how faithful is this adaptation? And is the novel very descriptive?

Because on a visual level, it's very surprising to see so much similarities. And Tintin's Destination Moon, while being published in 1953, started its episodic publication in Tintin Magazine as soon as 1950, several months before the release of the movie. But I remember that many details about the rocket, and mostly the journey itself, have been published after the movie. It's a bit of a let down for me, as I've always loved Tintin's adventures on the moon, to see now that it have in fact ripped off so many details from the movie and/or novel, even if the overall story and characters still are far superior to the movie.

Few similarities I can think of right now:

- how the rocket is supposed to launch, turn around and land on the moon

- the rocket design: even if it's based on the real V2 rocket, they share similar special features (wings design made for landing, retractable ladder...)

- interior of the rocket: central rounded screen/port to see the earth, shape of the bunks made to absorb pulling force on the bodies, and overall the interiors are very very similar

- equipement: magnetic boots, even one of the spacesuits shares the same orange color of Tintin's

And I'm sure there are many more.

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

Destination Moon was slightly based on Heinlein's 1947 novel "Rocketship Galileo", but it also incorporated some plot lines from another Heinlein novel, "The Man Who Sold the Moon", which Heinlein wrote in 1949 but did not publish until 1951, the year after Destination Moon premiered.

Heinlein also wrote a novella titled "Destination Moon", published later in 1950, which is based on but still differs significantly from the movie.

The books have technical information of course, but their plots are all different from the film's. Oddly, the book least like the film is the novel that supposedly served as its source, "Rocketship Galileo", which in most ways is more of a kids' story.

I've never read any Tintin but have heard of the book called "Destination Moon" in the series. I don't know how much Tintin ripped off Destination Moon but certainly the author was aware of the film and presumably was influenced by it and Heinlein's books. Of course, most of the scientific thinking of the time about how to land a spaceship on the moon was pretty much the same, so the coincidence in facts you mention might not be so remarkable.

[–] CaptainViggo 11 years ago

Sorry to see your answer so late, but thanks a lot for these helpful informations.

I strongly suggest you to read Tintin's moon adventures, as you would see those many visual similarities. It's good reading anyway if you like this kind of stories, and you don't even have to read the previous Tintin adventures to understand these.

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

Well, Tintin never sounded as though it would appeal to me, but we'll see. Thank you for the recommendation.

Again, almost all depictions or theories about space flight filmed or written back in the 40s and 50s used the same basic information and hypotheses about what a trip into space would be like, what the ship would look like, and so forth, so the fact that the Tintin story had similarities really wasn't so remarkable. I'm sure you could find similarities to other films. But the 1953 Tintin book should not have stolen the title of this movie.

[–] CaptainViggo 11 years ago

Again, almost all depictions or theories about space flight filmed or written back in the 40s and 50s used the same basic information and hypotheses about what a trip into space would be like

Surely, for the main elements, but I still don't think that all of those similarities only share common sources.

As for the title of the comics, I really don't know when it has been translated in english and given its title, but the original title is not exactly the same: Objectif Lune (Objective: Moon).

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

Not so much common sources as common ideas. In virtually all films and literature of the period a spaceflight was depicted as a single rocketship taking off. The specific designs varied but the fundamental idea was the same. And many of the beliefs and known science of the day were all broadly understood (or, in some cases, misunderstood), so you really would not have huge differences in such things. It sounds as though Tintin was simply following the common path, and nothing wrong with that in itself.

Of course, the book's plot may have been too similar to the movie Destination Moon, borrowing certain aspects of it, but that's a problem in the story itself, not with the science involved.

Yes, you did mention that the English title was changed from the French. Clearly it was the English-language publisher who was responsible for that copyright infringement. Yet even the French "Objectif: Lune" is suspiciously close to "Destination: Lune", the film's title in French.

(May I ask, CaptainViggo: Are you French yourself?)

[–] CaptainViggo 11 years ago

Indeed, it's fair to say that they both used common concepts from that time. I wish I could have more informations though, about the creative process of Hergé, working on his comics. So far, I've rarely seen any mention to the movie.

And yes, indeed I'm French. ^^

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

I went onto Wikipedia and looked up Hergé as well as his two related Tintin works, Objectif Lune and On a marché sur la Lune, issued in English as Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon.

Here is the link to the page for Tintin's Destination Moon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_%28comics%29

From this article you can click the title Explorers on the Moon to get to the page for the article on that story.

You can of course switch the text from English to français.

These articles might give you some information on how Hergé researched both books.

Hergé himself was not a particularly admirable character. His politics really were very fascistic and racist, and I'm not sure how much he truly evolved in later years, as he claimed.

Tintin has never been as popular or well-known here in the United States as he is in Europe. I don't think Steven Spielberg's movie three years ago did a lot to change that. Since Hergé was of course strictly European in his outlook and knew nothing about America, it's not surprising his creation would reflect his upbringing and sentiments and not have the appeal in the U.S. he had in Europe.

But I found a model of Tintin's moon rocket, just a soft toy, in London a couple of years ago. Red, not unlike the shape of the rocket in the film Destination Moon, with a red-and-white "checkerboard" pattern in the middle. I didn't realize its origins at the time. But it's shown on the covers of both Tintin moon books, which are reproduced in the Wikipedia articles.

I thought you were French, CaptainViggo. Your English is very good but I could still tell from a few things that it is not your native language. (For example, there is no such word as "informations"; just plain "information"!) But your overall command of anglais is excellent and you are to be congratulated for posting so ably on a board in a foreign tongue. I don't speak French (my British wife does) but your English is much better than my Spanish, or certainly my Russian!

A bientôt, mon capitain.

[–] CaptainViggo 11 years ago

Well, I've read plenty of stuff about Hergé and his work, I was a big fan of Tintin when I was younger. I even had a great book called "Ils ont marché sur la Lune" ("They walked on the Moon") relating the creative process behind Tintin's Moon adventures, very detailed, and made after Man really walked on the Moon (check the funny cover http://www.bedetheque.com/media/Couvertures/TintinDivers_13062004.jpg ^^). In the end, I've found almost nothing on the web comparing Tintin and Destination Moon.

About Hergé's political views, it's because of that that I learned really early not to go too deep inside the life of someone you like mostly for his work... :D
But to be fair, aside from his very early Tintin comics, seeing many of his other Tintin comics, it's fair to say that he was not fascistic and racist, or at least that he has evolved, as you were mentioning. The thing is Hergé started Tintin in 1929 in the newspaper "Le Vingtième Siècle" ("The Twentieth Century"). And not only it's a bit tricky to judge fairly a young man's politics from this period (I mean, society itself has heavily evolved since then), but the most important fact is that the man who introduced Hergé to the newspaper, and was some kind of a mentor to him, was indeed a religious extremist with fascistic views.
I think it's fair to say that Hergé has been heavily influenced by him when he was young, but has evolved a lot after that. Early Tintin adventures can be hard to read now, as "Tintin in Congo" which has a very colonialist point of view (Hergé was Belgian and Congo was still belgian at the time). But soon after that Tintin became friend with a Chinese boy named "Tchang", based on a real friendship between Hergé and Zhang Chongren, and I think that friendship alone has led him to a more open-minded path.
Beside that, Hergé was a really interesting person, very modest about his work, to the point that he was always insecure about it and depressive about his life, while he was instead very talented and has had a huge influence in comic-book storytelling, and not only in Europe.

Too bad that his work is not more known in US, and much too bad that he's now mostly known with this horrible Tintin movie that Spielberg and Jackson made...

As for the moon rocket, yes it is very similar in shape to the one we see in Destination Moon. Like I was saying, they are both inspired by the real-life V2 rocket, but they do share similar added special features. And by the way, this object alone is very iconic of Tintin in Europe, almost everybody instantly recognizes it.

Thanks for the kind words about my english. :) I love english, and the one thing that really helps me for several years now is that I watch english-speaking movies with english subtitles. It's really good for the vocabulary. My english is far from perfect as you noticed, but I'm glad to be able to have this kind of conversation. What I really lack for now is speaking english out loud, I'd really like to live some time in England to gain more experience.

Oh, and by the way, "captain" in french takes an "e" at the end (capitaine). ;p

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

Well, you're correct, people do change, and from what little I've read about Hergé over the years, it sounds as though he may have mellowed over time. He did appear to move away from some of the more fascistic or nationalist views he held up through World War II -- though he seems to have had no problem collaborating with the Nazis -- and he did refashion some of his work so that it no longer contained, not only political, social and racial extremism, but also animal cruelty.

Still, it is questionable whether he ever entirely abandoned his right-wing views. He may have modified or softened them, rather than giving them up altogether. Clearly, he had to change after the war.

I'm glad to learn that everyone in Europe would recognize Tintin's rocket. It held no association for me when I bought it, except that I did think of the movie Destination Moon -- not because the rocket looked like Spaceship Luna (it doesn't), but its general shape did remind me of the movie's rocket. But for this conversation I might never have known it was Tintin's ship!

I know what you mean about watching a film with subtitles in the spoken language -- it does help educate you in that language. As I said, I have never learned French (as my capitaine mistake proved!), but I have run some American movies with the DVD set for spoken French -- but not subtitles -- just to see what I could pick out. I'm especially curious about how they translate phrases that would make no sense in another language. For example, in the 1961 film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, there's a line where a Congressman visiting the submarine asks where a door leads to. The ship's captain replies, "That door, Congressman, leads to Davy Jones's locker." In English, "Davy Jones's locker" is a very old seafaring phrase that means "the bottom of the ocean". But I wondered how they would render this in French, so switched the DVD to spoken French. There, the captain said, "le royaume du Neptune". I could understand enough to hear that!

I have also heard differences in things such as measurements. In The Longest Day, for instance, a German officer is giving Rommel the weather forecast for the English Channel (La Manche) and, in German, gives the wind speed in kilometers and wave heights in meters. But the English subtitles render these figures in miles and feet. Again, in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the English dialogue has temperatures in Fahrenheit and distances in miles, but the French and Spanish dubs use Centigrade and kilometers. And in all cases they also change the numbers, not just the units, so that the measurements given are approximately the same either way.

I understand what you mean about needing exposure to people speaking another language to become proficient in it. I used to speak Russian fairly well but it's been so many years since I last really used it that I've lost much of my vocabulary. I just now saw a film in which a lot of Russian was spoken, without subtitles, and I understood about 60-70% of it, but I would not have been able to think of a lot of it myself. Speaking and interacting helps so much.

As I said, my wife is English, but even she can't understand some of the accents in her native island of Great Britain! Most non-native English speakers I've known have said they find it easier to understand American English than British English, though in most cases that was what they were used to. But English people seem to find it easy to understand me, while in some cases I find their accents difficult to comprehend. To an American ear, many English drop letters or syllables in words and speak very fast. But I'm sure the reverse is true for many Englishmen. (Spoken French sounds beautiful, while spoken English sounds like cats meowing!) Plus of course there are also some differences between American and British spelling...and English spelling is the worst in the world. That's one reason I so admire your fluency -- your English spelling is excellent and you express yourself very well. Writing has been a big part of my career and life, so I know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, if you do go to live in Britain for a time be careful where you go, so you can maximize your chances of improving your English. London is best, but stay away from Newcastle and Northumberland. That's the locale of the "Geordie" accent even my wife, a native, can barely comprehend!

But I'm glad these conversations are giving you some useful experience in English. It's an important language to know these days...at least until we all have to learn Chinese!

[–] JBrannon 10 years ago

One cannot copyright a title of a book under US law.

One may register a film title to avoid advertising confusion and suit for dilution of product.

There is a separate issue of trademark infringement in a title; e.g., Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan.

JJB

[–] hobnob53 10 years ago

This may all be true, but the issue here is the use of the film's title for a subsequent but completely unrelated book. The title "Destination Moon" may not have been copyrighted or registered so as to prevent its use in an unrelated book, which is the only way the Tintin book could have legitimately used it, but calling the book in English by the name of a then-recent and popular film was clearly meant to be deceptive, giving people the idea that the book was a novelization of the film. Of course, customers would presumably see it was a Tintin book before buying it, but the title itself would certainly have conveyed a false message.

While making the movie Destination Moon, George Pal did threaten to sue Robert L. Lippert, the producer of the rival picture Rocketship X-M, if he did not make clear in his advertising that his was a different film. And in fact many ads for RXM wound up the notation "This movie is NOT 'Destination Moon'". Pal also threatened action if Lippert's picture simply utilized DM's plot line about a trip to the moon -- hence the switch to Mars in RXM.

Lippert made his film to cash in on some of the massive pre-release publicity DM was generating. Ironically, in 1948 Irving Block had brought Lippert a proposal for a picture about a lunar expedition that he called "Destination Moon". Lippert rejected the idea at the time. Block hadn't protected his title, and not long after Pal announced his film called Destination Moon, but there's no indication he had ever heard of Block's proposed film. But that's what finally spurred Lippert to make his own space film, and he did beat Pal into theaters by seven weeks.

[–] orbit56 10 years ago

Although a little late to this discussion, I have to agree with hobnob53 that the similarities are superficial. Remember that these were the early years of planning interplanetary flight. In addition to the Heinlein stories, the film owes a lot to a non-fiction work published in 1949 titled The Conquest of Space, written by Willy Ley and illustrated by Chesley Bonestell, who did the matte paintings for Destination Moon. The cover illustration depicts a scene almost identical to the Luna's landing site in the film.

A rocket design wherein the entire vehicle goes to the Moon has to use its rockets to reduce landing speed. The same end of the rocket that blasts it off has to be used to land it, so it has to turn around. Retractable ladders are common sense for an aerodynamically designed missile.

Items like cushioned seats were already being used in aircraft for when pilots would execute maneuvers that would produce extreme g-forces. It's only logical to see them in a rocket ship, too.

There's not much room for creativity inside a cylindrical spaceship. Placement of equipment and furniture has limited options.

Remember, the coloring of the spacesuits in film was meant to distinguish the astronauts as they traversed the bland lunar surface. The colors were red, yellow, blue and a peculiar shade of green. (Sweeney wore the green suit. I believe Jim Barnes made a comment to the effect that green suited Sweeney who had experienced space sickness earlier.)

To be honest, you'd probably be able to find these sorts of details in any number of fictional and non-fictional depictions of spaceflight of the time. It's a bit like westerns. Cowboys all have to use horses to get around, six-shooters to defend themselves, and wide open spaces to do all the riding and shooting in. They're simply conventions, stock items that everyone can use but no one actually owns.

[–] BrickNash 10 years ago

I was reading Tintin boos since I was about 3 (I'm 37 now!) and I discovered this film after being on a retro sci-fi binge some years ago and yes the first thing that struck me was how similar it was to the Tintin story.

The suits, the rocket design and of course the identical name were far too close to be a coincidence but the Tintin books were all about putting the main character in settings that have pretty much been done before but it's his reaction to being in these settings that is the interesting part.

It doesn't take anything away from the books at all and the film is now one of my favourite 50's sci-fi movies.

[–] Rascar-Capac (45) 3 years ago

I discovered Hergés Tintin over a decade ago as a young boy and I do love Hergés art and storytelling ever since. Later on I realised, that several adventures must have been influenced by popular period films, when Hergé created them.
Apart from "Destination Moon" whose similarities with the George Pal Movie are obvious up to concept and design, I suggest to compare the following ones:

The Album "The Black Island", first published in 1937, shows several similarities to Alfred Hitchcocks "The 39 Steps" (1935): The hero accidentily unveils crimes of a secret organisation, which is led by a german villain in civilian disguise. He is wrongly pursued by the police also. By train they move from England to Scotland. Especially some funny turbulence on the train journey is quite similar. Later in the album we have a giant gorilla on a haunted island: I guess, the inspiration here may have come from "Son of Kong" (1934), as in both the movie and the comic tale a supposed frightening beast turns out to be quite friendly and helpful.
As for "King Ottokar‘s Sceptre", published 1938/39, I found similarities to "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1937): We have a small fantasy monarchy in Southeastern europe, a conspiration to subvert the rightful sovereign and a twin pair, one of which puts on a wrong identity. Decoration, coaches, ceremonies, uniforms give both film and comic their special look.

That said, despite adopting elements from other media, I never thought, that Hergé was a plagiarist, as he still managed to create a story line of his own.