In Flight 714, Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus get diverted from their trip to the Astronomical Conference in Sydney (they were guests of honour, being the first men on the moon, doncha know) when the plane they are on gets hijacked (not the titular Flight 714, oddly enough). What follows is a typical Tintin story, which means lots of action, terrific illustration, and some pretty interesting contemporary tie-ins.
I always find it interesting to read Tintin stories. Hergé did a pretty good job of tying contemporary events and concerns into the story arc, and while this can make them seem dated, it is also revealing to the modern reader. Flight 714 has a couple of great examples of this.
Tintin and friends land in Jakarta on their way to a conference in Sydney. While hanging out in the airport terminal, waiting for their connecting flight, they meet an old friend, Skut, who is flying the private jet of millionaire Laszlo Carreidas to the same conference. They raise the interest of Carreidas and he invites them to travel the rest of the way with him. Unluckily, they end up in the middle of a plot to capture the millionaire and steal his millions from a secret Swiss bank account. Pretty standard stuff.
What is interesting here in post-9/11 land is the complete naivite of the hijacking plot. One of the co-conspirators, the co-pilot, was picked up when they landed in Tehran (Tehran, for Chrissake!) and the regular co-pilot became sick. Everyone on board has a gun, no one has a political cause, etc. What is interesting is that, to me at least, this doesn’t seem like Hergé being simplistic, but rather the world in which this plot existed. Rightly or wrongly, (probably wrongly), it seems that hijacking an airplane in 1968 really was as easy as walking on board with a gun and saying, “We’re taking this plane to Pulau-Pulau Bompa!”
The other thing I found interesting, from a sociological point of view, was the inclusion of a major plot point right out of the pages of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods. In 1968, Chariots of the Gods proposed that Earth was visited multiple times in the past by aliens, and depictions of these events can be found in the archaeological record. It is interesting that Hergé was able to grab a hold of this meme and get it into Flight 714 so quickly, given that it was also published in 1968. Clearly, the Chariots phenomenon was a big enough deal at the time to warrant such an inclusion.
Flight 714 is a fun read, worth picking up, even if you don’t enjoy analysing it as much as I do.
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