Flight 714 is an interesting Tintin book, if only because it’s the most conventional Tintin story we’ve had in quite some time, while also being one of the oddest books in the franchise. There have been comparisons made between Hergé’s penultimate completed entry in The Adventures of Tintin and the television show Lost, which should give you some inkling of just how strange things get during this particular trip. And, given Tintin’s been to the surface of the moon, things get quite strange. Don't sweat the landing... There’s quite a lot of fuss about Flight 714 when you discuss it among Tintin fans. The most obviously controversial facet is the ending, which involves flying saucers and alien abductions. For some readers, it seems like this is clearly a bridge too far, and it seems to strain the imagination just a little bit too much.…show more content… “You’re going too far,” Haddock states when the subject of alien life comes up, “we aren’t as gullible as that!” However, I really don’t see it as especially strange subject matter for the stories. Hergé had always had a bit of a fascination with pulp pseudo-science, as any reader can attest. Even if one writes off The Shooting Star as a dream or a hallucination, there’s plenty of very strange stuff that Hergé has included in his books, drawing on the rich urban legends of the twentieth century. While he provided a rational explanation, the Curse of Tutankhamun served as the inspiration of both Cigars of the Pharaoh and Seven Crystal Balls. The Yeti featured in Tintin in Tibet. Even the presence of ball-lightning in Seven Crystal Balls and the suggestion of a secret Inca tribe in South America in Prisoners of the Sun speak of these sorts of pop culture myths that develop over time. Things are heating up... Flight 714 was written in the seventies, and it’s only fitting that Hergé should look to the cultural landscape of the time for
