The Shooting Star (The Adventures of Tintin)

Rating:
Summary: Herge's wartime Swiftian satire.
Review: After a string of stories loosely based on mystery/crime plots, 'The Shooting Star' initiates the formula that would become fairly standard in the Tintin books to come: the science-fiction adventure, a kind of modernist Jules Verne. A huge meteorite flying past earth splinters a large fragment which lands near the North Pole. Containing a new metal called phostlite, named after the astronomer who detected it, Tintin and Snowy join an expedition of world-class scientists to lay claim to the rock, in a ship captained by one Haddock, now unlikely President of the Society for Sober Sailors (despite smuggling crates of whiskey for the journey). Their quest, however, is pre-empted by another expedition, financed by crooked Sao Rico banker, cigar-chomping (anti-Semitic caricature?), Bohlwinkel.

The first dozen pages of 'Star' are unequalled in literature for sustaining a nightmare mood of unaccountable suspense and anxiety (appropriate given the Occupation context [1941] in which the story was written). The meteor is introduced as both a speedily growing incandescence in the night sky, and by a melting heat afflicting the usually drizzly Brussels, the tar on the roads melting, armies of rats fleeing the gutter, car-tyres popping and mad prophets pronouncing millenarian judgements. The spangled blackness of the sky is offset by the dreamlike twilight blue that illuminates the streets. When Tintin rushes to the observatory, he finds the spanking, steely modern technology run by an eccentric gaggle of Dickensian relics, all black frock-coated dodderers, running around in the vicious circles of their own self-absorption, headed by the appropriately-named, anvil-headed Phostle. When he encourages Tintin to look into the giant, cannon-priapic telescope for himself, he sees a colossal spider heading towards the planet.

No work could keep up that sweat-making momentum, and Herge wisely lets the narrative dip, mixing comedy (including Haddock's pathetic attempts to sneak a nagan, Snowy's incessant raids on the kitchen, and the sight of the world's finest minds keeling over in green-faced sea-sickness) with race-against-the-clock suspense as our heroes strive to reach the meteor, despite various chilling sabotage attempts by their rivals. The meteor itself is a creation worthy of Swift, soon erasing memories of 'The Black Island'. The affirmative faith in science that propels the action is undermined by the instabilities of the sinking meteor, with its magnified lifeforms (including flies and spiders) and exploding toadstools (among the book's many great visual effects, the best is possibly the shrinking in successive frames of our hero as the mushroom enlarges). The massive apples that knock Tintin on the head may be an ironic allusion to the great Enlightenment hero Newton, who could be said to usher in modern science, and the famous fruit in the Garden of Eden (like Adam, or Columbus, Tintin explores virgin land), a warning against the dangers of pursusing too much knowledge (earlier predicted by the decline into madness of the scientist Philippus); nature will always fight back, in ever more aggressive and distorted forms.

Rating:
Summary: sureal--in a good way
Review: I agree with the other reviewers before me that this episode of Tintin, is, well a little bizarre. For example, in the first few pages we learn that the world is coming to an end due to a predicted meteor that will crash into earth. One of the series strangest and most satirical character, Philippulus the Prophet makes an all too brief appearance with his words of doom for all the sinners of this world. Well, by morning of the next day, the world has not ended. Life goes on. The real adventure begins when Tintin, Capt. Haddock and a group of international scientists go on a quest to beat out their competition and to be the first ones to find a piece of the fragmented meteor that fell into the arctic oceans. It's basically an old fashioned space race but in cartoon. Personally, I liked this episode. I think it's charmingly weird--like reading a dream because it's full of imaginative stuff: armageddon, Tintin parachuting onto a boiling hot rock, spiders that grow into the size of cars, exploding pokadoted mushrooms from outer space.... Like I said, The Shooting Star could very be the name of a painting by Salvador Dali. Still, in general, this episode is quite worthy because you do have some pretty funny and exciting moments--which is, of course, the essence of Tintin.

Rating:
Summary: Tintin tackles the end of the world and giant mushrooms
Review: In 1942 the continent of Europe was totally embroiled in World War II, which may well explain why Herge offers up the most fanciful of Tintin's adventures. In fact, nothing else comes as close to "The Shooting Star," which begins with the world about to end because of a collision with a giant comet and ends with Tintin dealing with giant mushrooms. In between there is a race to find a meteorite that contains a new element of great scientific importance (another case of Herge's remarkable premonitions based on meticulous research no doubt). Tintin is aided and abetted in this adventure by Captain Haddock, who we first met in the previous tale, "The Crab with the Golden Claws." But I must say the supporting character who caught my attention was the seaplane pilot who helps our hero in the throughout the episode and in the thrilling climax. You do not usually see such as a realistic, levelheaded, intelligent person helping out Tintin. I find it to believe Herge did not even give this fellow a name, who more than makes up for the eccentric college of eggheads whom Tintin is trying to help. "The Shooting Stars" is one of the best Tintin straightforward adventures and his adversary is more often the elements than the bad guys trying to beat the good ship "Aurora" to the meteorite. The contrast of Herge's simple drawing of characters against more realistic backgrounds finds several excellent sequences in this story, the first to be originally printed in color.

Rating:
Summary: Tintin tackles the end of the world and giant mushrooms
Review: In 1942 the continent of Europe was totally embroiled in World War II, which may well explain why Herge offers up the most fanciful of Tintin's adventures. In fact, nothing else comes as close to "The Shooting Star," which begins with the world about to end because of a collision with a giant comet and ends with Tintin dealing with giant mushrooms. In between there is a race to find a meteorite that contains a new element of great scientific importance (another case of Herge's remarkable premonitions based on meticulous research no doubt). Tintin is aided and abetted in this adventure by Captain Haddock, who we first met in the previous tale, "The Crab with the Golden Claws." But I must say the supporting character who caught my attention was the seaplane pilot who helps our hero in the throughout the episode and in the thrilling climax. You do not usually see such as a realistic, levelheaded, intelligent person helping out Tintin. I find it to believe Herge did not even give this fellow a name, who more than makes up for the eccentric college of eggheads whom Tintin is trying to help. "The Shooting Stars" is one of the best Tintin straightforward adventures and his adversary is more often the elements than the bad guys trying to beat the good ship "Aurora" to the meteorite. The contrast of Herge's simple drawing of characters against more realistic backgrounds finds several excellent sequences in this story, the first to be originally printed in color.

Rating:
Summary: The most INTERESTING tintin book
Review: No, not the best, but definately the most interesting. This book was written in war time, in occupied belgium, and is a key point in deciding whether or not Herge was a fascist. I wrote a short essay on this, and if anyone would like to read it, email me at [e-mail].

This is definately a must for any tintin fan though.

Rating:
Summary: A meteor falls to earth in the oceans of the far north
Review: One night a star appears to get larger and larger and a strange heat wave strikes. Tintin goes to the observatory to inquire, where he finds that the falling star, a meteor, will soon strike earth and cause the end of the world. The meteor strikes but earth is still OK, and so a scientific expedition is launched to find and study the meteor. What will they find?

As you can see they find huge mushrooms. This adventure is very humorous with an insane astronomer. Captain Haddock and Snowy play slightly bigger roles than usual for some comic relief. Spiders, which terrify Snowy, keep pooping up throughout the story. Its pretty weird, but fun as always.