Mik Kanrokitoff, from Flight 714, is an alien disguised as a human.
He can hypnotize people and communicate through telepathy, he appeared on a deserted island out of nowhere. Perhaps his people are Human Aliens or he's using an hologram or hypnosis to disguise his true form. Tintin is an orphan with no surviving relatives.
Pretty much explains why, up until moving to Marlinspike, he's always on his own despite just being a teenager. Tintin's real name is Martin Totor.
No complicated theory. Just that Tintin is short for Martin (and his pen-name as a journalist and the name he goes by) and he's the same character as the young boy scout from Hergé's early strip The Adventures of Totor. Sure, it looks a bit odd to compare Totor to the Tintin of "... in Tibet", but factoring in the severe Early-Installment Weirdness in "Land of the Soviets" it's not so strange. Going with the orphan theory, Tintin's feats inspired Watari to open up Whammy House in order to find and nurture more geniuses who might otherwise go undiscovered.
Tintin's father is Indiana Jones.
- Maybe Indy had a relationship with a woman in Belgium, left the mother, but the adventuring gene is very strong.
- And he'll make a cameo in the next film. Most likely wishful thinking, but...
Tintin's father is Henry Jones Sr.
- Given the time period Tintin was first published, Indiana Jones may have been too young to father him. His father, however...
All the main characters and some of the recurring characters are Immortals
Specifically, Tintin, Haddock, Calculus, the Thom(p)sons, Rastapopulos, Allan, Alcazar, Tapioca and some of the others (possibly Abdullah is Not Allowed to Grow Up).This explains why they don't age and the occasional Made of Iron or No One Could Survive That! moment. The series basically depicts the never-ending struggles of a small clique of immortals through the 20th Century. For some reason, in this universe the fact that an immortal can be killed by decapitation is not widely known even among themselves. (This means that about the only time Tintin was actually in danger of dying was in The Blue Lotus.)
All the main characters and some of the recurring characters have time travelled at some point.
Tintin's first adventures take place in the 30s (japanese invasion of China, Al Capone, the Chaco war, etc.) The later adventures take place in the second half of the century (the Cold War, exploration of the Moon, etc.), with the characters apparently having neither aged nor lived through WWII. The aliens from Flight 714 must have abducted them before WWII and brought them back to Earth in the 60s, unaged thanks to relativity. They don't remember it of course because their memories were erased by hypnosis. This also explain why Kanrokitoff just happened to be there on the island when they landed. The aliens must have been monitoring them. Perhaps they saw a special purpose for them in the later 20th century and that's why they brought them forward in time (perhaps at the same time saving them from dying in WWII).- Semi-jossed by Word of Dante: most "tintinologist" assume that in a Literary Agent Hypothesis, the stories happened shortly before being published in the real world. This is a kind of convention. So the stories published during WWII were actually what happened DURING WWII. As for why it's not addressed... "Please don't ask me why, no one quite knows the answer", as another children book author would put it.
Tintin is a Time Lord.
Think about it: He doesn't age. He has no relatives. He talks to animals. He has no interest in human females. Maybe his TARDIS malfunctioned and had to occupy a white fox terrier! Just like the Doctor's TARDIS malfuntioned and had to occupy a woman.- He also makes a point of helping everyone he meets, dislikes injustice, loves to travel, wears a long coat, and makes close, lifelong friendships with eccentric-but-endearing characters. And has had Moffat on the writing team.
The Incas from The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun had been in a Dark Age ever since the conquistadores.
Among other things, they had forgotten what their ancestors knew about astronomy. Frank Wolff isn't dead.
When he escaped the rocket, he was instantly teleported into the astroship from Flight 714. Remember, they have been observing Earth for years, so they'd probably want to keep an eye on the Syldavian's space program. When they realized what Wolff was up to, they intervened and saved his life.- Headcanon accepted.
The phostlite radiation from the Shooting Star turned Tintin immortal.
It also made him radiate a mental block that makes people not notice or care that he's been around forever. Both effects are uncontrollably passed on to those he particularly cares about or spends a lot of time around, though secondary immortals aren't contagious. At some point in the next movie that Tintin meme will be mentioned.
The one where Haddock goes 'HA HA HA, OH WOW' to be exact. The Bordurians are real life (in universe) Commie Nazis
While the events of The Calculus Affair are set during the Cold War and Borduria uses quite a few Commie Land tropes it also still has a lot Nazi/Fascist elements - in fact the political ideology of the ruling regime is called 'Taschism', after the dictator Marshal Kûrvi-Tasch. Borduria (and Syldavia) experienced offscreen revolutions during the WWII period
Borduria is first introduced via agents of Musstler, a clear stand-in for Hitler and Mussolini, who is never mentioned again in comics set after WWII, being replaced by Kûrvi-Tasch - a military dictator who engages in a cold war with Syldavia and feeds his ego with heroic statues and his very own political ideology named after himself, and in such respects is a broad analogue for Stalin.Much like how Syldavia seems to have lost its monarchy in an offscreen conquest by Axis forces and then been liberated as a NATO-friendly conservative republic, Borduria must have been a German ally during WWII which was conquered by the Red Army on their way to Berlin (perhaps during the Budapest Offensive). Kûrvi-Tasch would plausibly have been a Bordurian nationalist and Cominform leader who came to power overthrowing the Axis government, took control of a pro-Stalin authoritarian military state, and joined the Warsaw Pact. (As for why Borduria doesn't seem to have changed all that much... as the name "Taschism" suggests, it's just gone from one national populist dictator to another, with similar consequences as Alcazar and Tapioca deposing each other's juntas in San Theodoros.)
Professor Calculus knows he is deaf and doesn't use a hearing aid on purpose.
Calculus is quick to anger, like Captain Haddock. Unlike the captain, however, Calculus is remarkably violent. Watch how he acts during "Destination Moon" and "Explorers on the Moon." He assaults several people and goes on a rampage after the captain tells him he's "Acting the goat." Calculus also has no problem yelling at the Twins when they question his authority. He also beats the crap out of Carreidas in "Flight 714."Calculus is aware that he has serious anger issues. While he has trouble controlling his temper, Calculus uses his deafness to hide it. Because he cannot hear people correctly, Calculus just assumes that they are not trying to anger him, and this keeps him from losing his cool.
In the film, Nestor knew about Sir Francis' puzzle and the location of the treasure the entire time.
It seems that Nestor had been working for the Haddocks his entire life, seeing as how he had served the Haddocks before Marlinspike Hall was sold off. It's also implied that his entire family served the Haddocks, since Sir Francis' first mate resembles Nestor. Finally, Nestor seemed to have some knowledge about the clues Sir Francis left behind, since he subtly gave Tintin a crucial clue to the importance of the model Unicorns. However, being the loyal retainer that he is, he was just biding his time until a Haddock returned to take possession of Marlinspike Hall. The next movie will pick up with the rest of Red Rackham's Treasure and somehow incorporate The Calculus Affair.
The film leads off with Tintin and Haddock agreeing to find the treasure, so that's where it will pick up. Professor Calculus will be introduced and stay important throughout the entire film, but will only be minorly in-focus compared to Tintin and Haddock. I wouldn't doubt Bianca or Allan popping up again, but we might have to wait for a third film to see Rastapoulos. The hallucinations the Egyptologists suffered in The Seven Crystal Balls are Rascar Capac and other Incan Mummies/Demons coming to life and attacking them.
Because they screamed about figures attacking them, and Rascar Capac is absolutely terrifying, so it would make sense. Ramon and Alonzo are gay.
For hardened criminals they seem awfully close and there is no implication that they are brothers. Even though Ramon constantly messes up, Alonzo is always supportive of him and sometimes even gentle towards him. Also, in the comic Ramon seems quite camp. Tintin is a descendant of Asterix.
Also, Haddock is a descendant of Obelix, Snowy is a descendant of Dogmatix, Calculus of Getafix and finally Castafiore of Cacofonix. Also the man dressed as Asterix at the carnival in "Picaros" is the real Asterix immortalized by magic potion, and the spoof-Thompsons seen in "Asterix in Belgium" are actually the ancestors of the real Thompsons.- I see your theory and raise you: Haddock is a descendant of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.
Müller is Hans Landa.
Akass in "Alph-Art is a fake identity given to Rastopopolous by Kanrokitoff
.Only the memory altering went wrong and he's still evil. Herge had originally intended Sakharine to be Red Rackham's true descendant.
They're not perfect duplicates of each other, but comic!Sakharine
◊ bears a great resemblance to Red Rackham
◊. They have similar noses, foreheads, and beards. Perhaps, in an original draft of the script, Herge had intended to play up this resemblance: either Sakharine was supposed to be the real villain, or a red herring to distract from the actual villain, or it was just going to be a joke about how the infamous pirate's descendent is a harmless collector. Rastapopoulos and the rest of his gang were only dropped off unharmed but with amnesia
- Considering what happened to the others abducted, even Krollspell just being dropped near Cairo where his clinic is, this looks quite likely.
The Syldavian Government bitterly regretted backing the lunar expedition in Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon.
While the lunar expedition seems like a great success from a scientific point of view, and from that of a personal point of view it was probably a PR disaster for the Syldavians. To begin with despite providing the highest possible security the project was infiltrated by agents of a foreign power, which hardly casts the ZEPO (Syldavia's intelligence agency) in the best light. Worse however is the fact that the only Syldavian on the expedition is a murderous traitor who sneaks aboard - Professor Calculus would seemingly sooner bring his friend's dog than a Syldavian despite their money and resources bankrolling the operation. Finally we know the cold war between Syldavia and Borduria turns particularly bad almost immediately afterwards in The Calculus Affair meaning that many in Syldavia might wonder if that uranium might have been better spent on weaponry than a costly moon rocket that doesn't even offer them any national prestige.Hence the seeming Face–Heel Turn of the Syldavians in The Calculus Affair - the Syldavians have no particular reason to feel grateful to our heroes for the trip to the moon and the scandal might even have been bad enough to topple whatever government might have been working with Calculus to begin with.
Tintin lived many more adventures after the canonical ones, based on events of the real world.
I know Death of the Author is popular to throw around, but considering how the Tintin stories go, in which the majority were inspired by real life events of the time period, I think it's safe to assume Tintin and his friends lived off more adventures in the following years, some imaginary, some slightly based on real world issues: seeing Japan turn into a first world economy and Peru submit to communism terrorism in the 80s, helping the Emir in the matter of the Gulf War...And speaking of of "basing itself on current events"... The new stories would reflect the social thoughts of the era.
Times change, and what was once socially acceptable can't be anymore, or the previously unthought can be accepted. Seeing how Alph-Art featured the first prominent supporting female character (not counting Castafiore), it's safe to believe that in future Tintin stories, more female characters would feature more prominently (perhaps one could even be added to the main group of characters?). And maybe supporting non-white characters that previously appeared in the series would have bigger roles, like Chang or Abdullah.- That is if there are new stories. The last Tintin comic isn't recent at all (1976). It stopped because the author died.
Oliveira de Figueira has fled Portugal's Estado Novo
Oliveira de Figueira is from Lisbon, Portugal, and when he appears in the Tintin stories it's at the same time that Portugal was under Salazar's rule. He's living in the Middle East either because he's on the run due to him being an opponent of the regime, or he simply doesn't enjoy life under Salazar so he chose to relocate. He helps out Tintin against Müller and Bab El Ehr because he doesn't want what happened in Portugal to happen again in the Middle East.