Flight 714 to Sydney
Flight 714 to Sydney (Vol 714 pour Sydney) | |
---|---|
Date | 1968 |
Series | The Adventures of Tintin |
Publisher | Casterman |
Creative team | |
Creator | Hergé |
Original publication | |
Published in | Tintin magazine |
Issues | 936 – 997 |
Date of publication | 27 September 1966 – 28 November 1967 |
Language | French |
Translation | |
Publisher | Methuen |
Date | 1968 |
Translator |
|
Chronology | |
Preceded by | The Castafiore Emerald (1963) |
Followed by | Tintin and the Picaros (1976) |
Flight 714 to Sydney (French: Vol 714 pour Sydney; originally published in English as Flight 714) is the twenty-second volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It was serialised weekly from September 1966 to November 1967 in Tintin magazine. The title refers to a flight that Tintin and his friends fail to catch, as they become embroiled in their arch-nemesis Rastapopoulos' plot to kidnap an eccentric millionaire from a supersonic business jet on a Sondonesian island.
Hergé started work on Flight 714 to Sydney four years after the completion of his previous Adventure,
Synopsis
During a refueling stop at
Tintin, Haddock, Calculus, Skut and Gino are bound and held in a
Snowy helps Tintin and his friends escape, and they find the bunker where Carreidas is held prisoner. Tintin and Haddock bind and gag Rastapopoulos, Krollspell and Carreidas, and escort them to lower ground, intending to use Rastapopoulos as a hostage. The serum's effect wears off, and Rastapopoulos escapes; Krollspell, eager to stay alive, continues to accompany Tintin and Haddock. After a run-in with Allan, the pilots, and the Sondonesians, Tintin, led by a
Kanrokitoff puts Tintin and his compatriots under hypnosis and summons a flying saucer piloted by the extraterrestrials, which they board to escape the eruption. Kanrokitoff spots the rubber dinghy and exchanges Tintin and his companions (except Krollspell, who is returned to his clinic) for Allan, Spalding, Rastapopoulos, and the treacherous pilots, who are whisked away in the saucer to an unknown fate. Tintin, Haddock, Calculus, Skut, Gino and Carreidas awaken from hypnosis and cannot remember what happened to them; Calculus retains a crafted rod of alloyed cobalt, iron, and nickel, which he had found in the caves. The cobalt is of a state that does not occur on Earth, and is the only evidence of an encounter with its makers. Only Snowy, who cannot speak, remembers the hijacking and alien abduction. After being rescued by a scouting plane and interviewed about what they can recall of their ordeal, Tintin, his companions, and Carreidas catch the titular Qantas flight to Sydney.[4]
History
Hergé began writing Flight 714 to Sydney four years after he had ended his previous instalment in the series, The Castafiore Emerald.[5] His enthusiasm for the Adventures of Tintin had declined, and instead his main interest was abstract art, both as a painter and a collector.[5] He initially planned on titling his new story Special Flight for Adelaide before changing it to Flight 714 to Sydney.[6] While working on the story, Hergé told English translator Michael Turner that "I've fallen out of love with Tintin. I just can't bear to see him".[7]
With Flight 714 to Sydney, Hergé stated that he wanted a "return to Adventure with a capital A... without really returning there".
Rastapopoulos, a recurring villain in the series who had last appeared in The Red Sea Sharks, made a return in Flight 714 to Sydney.[5] In his interviews with Numa Sadoul, Hergé noted that he was consciously shifting the nature of the villains in the book, relating that "during the story, I realised that when all was said and done Rastapopoulos and Allan were pathetic figures. Yes, I discovered this after giving Rastapopoulos the attire of a de luxe cowboy; he appeared to me to be so grotesque dressed up in this manner that he ceased to impress me. The villains were debunked: in the end they seem above all ridiculous and wretched. You see, that's how things evolve".[13] Other characters that Hergé brought back for the story were Skut, the Estonian pilot from The Red Sea Sharks,[14] and Jolyon Wagg, who is depicted watching television at the very end of the story.[11]
Hergé also introduced new characters into the story, such as Laszlo Carreidas, who was based on the French aerospace magnate
Although Hergé drew the basis of Flight 714 to Sydney, his assistants at
Carreidas 160
Hergé wanted the Carreidas 160 supersonic business jet in Flight 714 to Sydney to have at least the same detailed attention that he had put into all of his fictional vehicles, from the Unicorn ship in The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) to the Moon rocket in Explorers on the Moon (1954).[17] The faster-than-sound jet aircraft called for by the new Tintin adventure, while fanciful, could not be viewed as implausible and needed to meet the same exacting standards. Hergé, who had reached his sixtieth birthday and whose drawing hand had begun suffering from eczema, left the design and drawing of the jet to Roger Leloup, his younger colleague at Studios Hergé.[20] Leloup, a technical artist and aviation expert, had drawn the Moon rocket, the de Havilland Mosquito in The Red Sea Sharks (1958), and all aircraft in the recently redrawn The Black Island (1966).[21] Leloup was described by British Tintin expert Michael Farr as "the aeronautical expert in the Studios" and his design of the Carreidas 160 as "painstakingly executed and, of course, viable".[22]
A "meticulous design of the revolutionary Carreidas 160 jet" was prepared, according to entertainment producer and author Harry Thompson, "a fully working aircraft with technical plans drawn up by Roger Leloup".[23] Leloup's detailed cross-sectional design of the Carreidas 160 and its technical specifications were published in a double-page spread for Tintin magazine in 1966.[24]
Publication
Flight 714 to Sydney was serialised in Belgium and France in
When originally published in English by
Critical analysis
Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters noted that Flight 714 to Sydney "continues the debunking process" of the most recent books, with the villains becoming "objects of parody".[13] He suggested that the character of Carreidas was "one of the most marked features" of the book, for he represented "a more ambiguous character than Hergé's earlier creations". He thought that in doing so, Hergé was "trying to make his world more subtle by eliminating the certainties on which it had been built" and in doing so was "attacking the very foundations he had created", and that this "self-destructive tendency" became more fully "explicit" in the subsequent instalment, Tintin and the Picaros.[13] Peeters noted that the book "smacks somewhat of [Hergé's] hesitation" as he was unsure whether to include an explicit depiction of the extraterrestrial ship.[8] Peeters also thought that the final scene in the book, featuring Wagg and his family, was "tailored to perfection".[30]
Michael Farr suggested that Flight 714 to Sydney represented the "most far-fetched adventure" in the series.[32] He suggested that the narrative got off to a "promising start" but that it "degenerates" as it progresses.[11] He also criticised the artwork, suggesting that as a result of its reliance on the artists of Studios Hergé, it contained "excesses" not present in earlier volumes.[11] Farr thought that the addition of extraterrestrials was "esoteric and speculative enough to weaken and trivialise the whole adventure".[11]
Harry Thompson praised Flight 714 to Sydney, believing that with it, Hergé was at the "top of his form".[33] Thompson thought that "artistically, the book is his greatest achievement", demonstrating a "cinematic ingenuity of his composition", particularly in its scenes inside the temple and of the volcanic eruption.[33] He also noted that the scene of the extraterrestrial spacecraft bore similarities with the depiction of the alien ship in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, highlighting that the film's director, Steven Spielberg, was a known fan of The Adventures of Tintin.[23] Thompson also highlighted the "parallel with big business and crime" that was used in the story, noting that this theme had earlier been present in Tintin in America.[34]
The literary critic Tom McCarthy believed that Flight 714 to Sydney exhibited a number of themes that recurred throughout the Adventures of Tintin more widely. He opined that the troubles faced by Tintin and Haddock aboard Carreidas' jet reflected the theme of the "troubled host–guest relationship".[35] He believed that Rastapopoulos' activities below the area that he could be located by radar reflected the theme of eluding detection.[36] In addition, he expressed the view that the flagging relationship of Haddock and Calculus, as it is depicted in Flight 714 to Sydney, is a form of the wider theme of strained relationships in the series.[37] McCarthy also highlighted the scene at the start the story in which Haddock mistakes Carreidas for someone trapped in poverty and gives him some money accordingly; McCarthy drew parallels between this scene and a similar one from Charles Baudelaire's poem "La Fausse Monnaie", suggesting that Hergé might have been thinking of Baudelaire's scene when creating his own.[38]
Flight 714 may seem like a totally pointless adventure because the characters do not remember anything that happens and their stay on the island does not change them in any way. While showing us something of their daily lives and desire for roots, this adventure otherwise alienates the characters from their readers and encloses them in a fictional universe.
Jean-Marie Apostolidès[39]
In his
Apostolidès believed that Flight 714 to Sydney exhibited many of the same themes as were present in Prisoners of the Sun and the Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon story arc.[42] He compares the character of Carreidas with that of Baxter from the moon adventure, yet notes that the former is "craftier, more childish and inhumane, less interested in research itself than in technological applications", working for profit rather than the good of humanity.[42] Turning his attention to comparisons with Prisoners of the Sun, he highlights that both stories feature ancient temples, "weird animals", and dramatic natural phenomena,[44] as well as the prominent inclusion of amnesia.[45]
Adaptations
In 1991, a collaboration between the French studio
References
Footnotes
- ^ Hergé 1968, pp. 1–20.
- ^ Hergé 1968, pp. 20–31.
- ^ Hergé 1968, pp. 31–55.
- ^ Hergé 1968, pp. 55–62.
- ^ a b c Farr 2001, p. 179.
- ^ Goddin 2011, p. 148.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 191.
- ^ a b c Peeters 2012, p. 299.
- ^ a b c Peeters 2012, p. 298.
- ^ Peeters 1989, p. 120; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 80; Goddin 2011, p. 150; Peeters 2012, p. 298.
- ^ a b c d e f g Farr 2001, p. 183.
- ^ a b c Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 80.
- ^ a b c d e Peeters 1989, p. 120.
- ^ a b c d e Farr 2001, p. 180.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 180; Peeters 1989, p. 120; Goddin 2011, p. 148.
- ^ The Sunday Times 1968 interview with Hergé
- ^ a b Goddin 2011, p. 150.
- ^ a b Farr 2001, p. 184.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 183; Goddin 2011, p. 155; Peeters 2012, p. 299.
- ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–201; Farr 2001, p. 184; Thompson 1991, p. 190.
- ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–202; Farr 2001, pp. 75, 78, 157, 184; Lambiek Comiclopedia 2011; Dupuis 2011.
- ^ Farr 2001, pp. 184–185.
- ^ a b Thompson 1991, p. 190.
- ^ Farr 2001, pp. 184–185; Tintin magazine 1966.
- ^ a b c Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 79.
- ^ Goddin 2011, p. 152.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 190; Goddin 2011, p. 155.
- ^ Goddin 2011, p. 155.
- ^ "Tintin—Egmont Group". Egmont Group. 2013. Archived from the original on 27 March 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
- ^ Peeters 1989, p. 121.
- ^ a b Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 81.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 178.
- ^ a b Thompson 1991, p. 188.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 189.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 71.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 29.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 58.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, pp. 140–141.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 260.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 252.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, pp. 253–254.
- ^ a b c Apostolidès 2010, p. 254.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 255.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 256.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 258.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 90.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-8047-6031-7.
- ISBN 978-0-19-539759-8.
- ISBN 978-0-7195-5522-0.
- ISBN 978-0-86719-763-1.
- ISBN 978-1-4052-0633-4.
- ISBN 978-1-904048-17-6.
- ISBN 978-1-86207-831-4.
- ISBN 978-0-416-14882-4.
- Peeters, Benoît (2012) [2002]. Hergé: Son of Tintin. Tina A. Kover (translator). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0454-7.
- ISBN 978-0-340-52393-3.
- "Avant Concorde ... le Carreidas 160 Jet" [Before the Concorde ... the Carreidas 160 Jet]. Tintin (in French). Le Lombard. December 1966.
- "Roger Leloup (b. 17 January 1933, Belgium)". Lambiek Comiclopedia. 11 November 2011. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
From 1953 to 1969 he worked at Studios Hergé, where he was responsible for the airplanes in the Tintin episode Vol 714, among other things.
- "Roger Leloup". Dupuis: Editeur Caractère(s). 2011. Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
Hergé gives him especially technical drawings and very accurate decoration, such as the railway station of Genève-Cointrin in L'Affaire Tournesol, the wheelchair of captain Haddock in Les Bijoux de la Castafiore, cars, motorbikes, tanks, the design of the aeroplane of Carreidas, and all the aeroplanes in the new version of L'Île noire.
External links
- Flight 714 at the Official Tintin website
- Flight 714 at Tintinologist.org
- List of Roger Leloup publications in Belgian Tintin, French Tintin and Spirou BDoubliées (in French)
- Roger Leloup biography BDparadisio (in French)