Joel, Chris, Megan and Jason all review Jim Henson and Franz Oz's The Dark Crystal
Joel's Thoughts: It’s hard to imagine flat out disliking this movie. Even if fantasy is not your cup of tea and you’d prefer your Henson full of slapstick and silly comedy (Though he does that amazingly as well) you can’t help but just be in awe of what is accomplished in this movie. Henson and company set out and succeed in telling a fantasy epic in a live action movie with no humans. It’s not the best puppet work ever captured on film, but at the time it was. Remember, at this point we had The Muppet Show, and the first Muppet Movie had been released. But the intricate and ambitious character design in this movie is like nothing that had ever been attempted at that point.
The movie proves that puppets aren’t just useful for comedy gags. The movie is completely serious and plays the characters straight with never a wink to the audience. It works and it creates a thrilling epic that is still easily able to hold up all these years later.
Chris' Thoughts: Very seldom do I flat-out hate a movie, especially one made by Jim Henson, a man whose work I’ve admired my whole life. However, THIS movie...this freaking movie...I just don’t know how to put any of this.
The encapsulating way I can describe this movie is that it’s the most masturbatory exercise in puppetry that I’ve seen to date. The scenes of just animals and wildlife doing weird stuff is simply wasteful and does nothing to add to the story. Sure, one might argue that this is a method of establishing that we’re looking at a strange and different world but that was established with the super annoying, walking vultures.
I’ve never seen a movie with such a painful amount of expository narration and dialogue yet still have no idea of what the crap is going on in the movie. I hate the characters, the annoying vultures (the Skeksis) and all the dumb sounds effects that made me want to strangle every last one of them. And then there was the Gelflings (which I know what they’re called because it was repeated a billion freaking times during the movie) who looked like two Joan Rivers’ (RIP) with the worst dialogue I’ve ever heard.
Rarely do I ever come away from a movie with absolutely nothing positive to say about it but this Lord of the Rings knockoff does the trick. How much acid did Jim Henson and Frank Oz take when they made this? And how much acid to I need to take before I think this is a good movie?
Megan's Thoughts: I’m really not sure what happened in this movie. If you asked me to tell you the plot, I could probably give you a rough outline, but not any actual explanation. The puppetry was beautiful, really complicated and set in such a way that it did feel like a natural extension of the world they created for them. But it did what a lot of 80s fantasy movies did and just kind of languished in imagery and didn’t get anywhere. I will say though that it’s clearly the spiritual predecessor to Labyrinth, which is much more fun and has David Bowie, so at least it has served a noble purpose in furthering ridiculous gremlin puppet creations.
Jason's Thoughts: Making a fictional setting in a movie has got to be difficult. So many have tried and failed that I am led to believe that it is nearly impossible! Therefor, making an entirely fictional world out of completely created material has got to be multiple times as difficult. However, if any movie has ever pulled it off, it would be this one. The world of the Dark Crystal is so immersive and complex that it takes a few viewings to really let it sink in. There is so much to look at and experience throughout the film that it can be overwhelming. On top of all of that, the creature design is beyond beautiful. Jim Henson and his team put so much work into every little detail that the puppets , once filmed, are no longer puppets but rich, living creatures with a history and a civilization. Looking past the masterpiece that is the fabricated world, the plot of the film is a little simplistic, very reminiscent of the classic ‘hero’s tale’ that is so often done. And let it be known, the final cut of the film is a far cry from Henson’s original concept. In his first drafts and even till about halfway through filming, the Skeksis and their alter selves, the Mystics, were supposed to speak an entire created language. This would have added yet another layer to the immersion, but test audiences found it very confusing, so it was changed.
All of this to say, I am a huge fan of this magical cult classic.
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