&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/9021?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=The+adventures+of+Tintin+*+and+CGI%3AArticle%3A1644407&amp;ch=Film&amp;c3=GU.co.uk&amp;c4=Tintin++%28Culture%29%2CSteven+Spielberg+%28Film%29%2CPeter+Jackson+%28Film%29%2CAnimation+%28Film+genre%29%2CScience+fiction+and+fantasy+%28Film+genre%29%2CFilm%2CComics+and+graphic+novels+%28Books+genre%29%2CBooks%2CCulture&amp;c5=Unclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&amp;c6=Ben+Child&amp;c7=11-Oct-07&amp;c8=1644407&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Blogpost&amp;c11=Film&amp;c13=Week+in+geek+%28Film+series%29&amp;c25=Film+blog&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FFilm%2FTintin&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;If Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson pull it off, this animated marvel could change the face of comic-book movies for good&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#039;m desperately hoping that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson&#039;s great Tintin adventure turns out to be a success. It&#039;s not just because the movie &ndash; for which the latest trailer has just hit the web &ndash; apparently offers an opportunity for the director to make nice with those of us who hated the anodyne &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls&lt;/a&gt;. And it&#039;s not only because I&#039;d love to see the rest of Herg&eacute;&#039;s wonderfully imaginative series of stories on the big screen. It&#039;s because if Jackson and Spielberg can truly bring the comic books to life via the use of innovative Avatar-style motion capture, and if the movie is a hit at the box office, it&#039;s going to completely transform the way fantasy films (and I use the term in the wider sense) are considered by studios from now on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But first to the new trailer for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983193/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Adventures of Tintin: the Secret of the Unicorn&lt;/a&gt;. This time we get our first proper look at the Unicorn itself, as well as an extended glimpse of a north African city where Tintin and Captain Haddock travel in their search for the famous ship. Intriguingly, Spielberg has already &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hollywood.com/news/Adventures_of_Tintin_UK_Trailer_Violence_in_Animated_Movies_Debate/7846799&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;come in for criticism for portraying gun battles&lt;/a&gt; in what some see as a children&#039;s film. Haddock even fires a bazooka &ndash; but we&#039;re hardly talking &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/news/ni3723293/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Expendables levels of violence&lt;/a&gt;. Besides, I can&#039;t imagine not allowing a child to watch an Indiana Jones film (the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.greatestmoviedeaths.com/2007/12/temple-of-doom-movie-scene-that-created.html&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;heart extraction bit in Temple of Doom&lt;/a&gt; aside), and anyway, surely Spielberg includes a protective layer in his film to keep kids from getting too upset, or deciding to join the National Rifle Association.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So why is Tintin so important?  I&#039;ve written before on this blog about how comic book films&#039; natural form really ought to be CGI-based animation. Ditto (to a lesser extent) science-fiction and swords-and-sorcery fantasy movies. All require the sort of suspension of disbelief which comes naturally for animation. It&#039;s possible to render these genres via live action, but this requires a far greater effort on the part of the film-maker to balance realism and fantasy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With comic-book adaptations in particular, dialogue that appears charmingly brazen on the printed page can become hokey on the big screen, especially when mouthed by an actor whose face we probably know more intricately than those of most of our own friends. It&#039;s why Superman is always played by a virtual unknown. If he&#039;d been portrayed by Nicolas Cage, as was once posited, no one would have been able to suspend disbelief. But put Nicolas Cage in a motion capture studio and the world might easily believe him as the Man of Steel in an animated take. Animation may just offer us a half-way house: we get to enjoy great actors without having to ignore the fact that they are real people. It&#039;s a brand new tool, one which dramatically obviates the requirement for us to use our imagination to mentally touch up a given moving image.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If Tintin works, then we might just see a new sub-genre of film emerge in which great comic-book movies maintain the style of the original artwork while adding cinematic verve. Imagine &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;Watchmen&lt;/a&gt;, Judge Dredd or &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;The Crow&lt;/a&gt; shot using the same techniques, perhaps with the original comic-book artists on board to ensure their vision translated to film. It&#039;s a tantalising prospect, and one whose future right now seems to depend on the fortunes of a young Belgian reporter and his trusty pooch.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tintin&quot;&gt;Tintin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/stevenspielberg&quot;&gt;Steven Spielberg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/peterjackson&quot;&gt;Peter Jackson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/animation&quot;&gt;Animation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/sciencefictionandfantasy&quot;&gt;Science fiction and fantasy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/comics&quot;&gt;Comics and graphic novels&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/benchild&quot;&gt;Ben Child&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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