The other day, I decided to show my partner the film The Dark Crystal" from 1982, because, truth be told, it's a gem. I can never get enough of old films, kids shows and media in general that use puppets or animatronic puppetry. Weirdly enough, I was terrified of puppets in real life as a child (mainly Punch & Judy shows and people dressed up like giant bunny rabbits standing outside Tesco for Easter shudder) and to be honest, they still freak me out to this day.
But anyway, the usage of animatronic puppets, props, set design, just the whole production in general, is incredibly impressive in this film and I feel like it's kind of sad that this kind of medium isn't as popular today. I haven't seen the prequel to The Dark Crystal on Netflix yet, but since my partner enjoyed the film so much with me, we will give it a watch together soon. It's unfortunate that it seems to have been cancelled already after one season.
If you haven't seen the film, I recommend it, especially if you love dark fantasy, Lord of the Rings or 80s films in general. It's a treat. I did read during my research that it was often called a 'flawed masterpiece', I personally disagree and would call it a flawless masterpiece.
About the Film
So, if you haven't seen the Dark Cyrstal before, you may be thinking, “what on earth is that? And why does the crystal have to be dark? Why not light or rainbow-coloured?” Well, that's the thing about dark fantasy… it's dark.
The fiilm was directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. If you don't know Jim Henson by name, then you most certainly know him from his work as he is the creator of Muppets and Fraggle Rock, and also directed Labyrinth with David Bowie in 1986. Upon writing this I feel an urge to go through more of his works and write about them more, especially the shows or films that weren't as popular as green Mr. Kermit the Frog over there.
Jim Henson also wrote the story and produced The Dark Crystal, which really shows off the skills he had as a filmmaker. The creature designs, both on the good and evil sides, are outstanding. Each one stands out, and there's always a clear line between the good and the bad. Set on the planet Thra, the story follows Jen, a young Gelfling, as he goes on a quest to heal the dark crystal from the evil Skeksis. A thousand years prior to this, the Skeksis and another race called Mystics appeared because a shard was shattered from the Crystal of Truth, and this is what Jen is setting out to heal.
Next, let's also talk about Frank Oz. He directed the film along with Jim Henson, his other works including being the puppeteer for Miss Piggy, the Cookie Monster and surprisingly, also provided the puppeteering and voice for Yoda in a lot of the Star Wars franchise. YODA.
The minds of Jim Henson and Frank Oz combined together resulted in something special.
The Book “No Strings Attached”
I took a peak at the book called No Strings Attached, which looks at the history of work of Jim Henson's Creature shop, a visual effects company founded by Jim Henson in 1979. I borrowed the book for one hour (yes you can do that with Internet Archive books, if you didn't know!) and had a look mainly at the Dark Crystal chapter, even though I would love to have a physical copy sometime and write more on the book as a whole. Reading is fun! The film was apparently five years in the making and the first full-length film to use puppets/animatronics as lead characters. Quoting from the book:
“ Work began in 1979. 'I wanted to create the world first,' said Henson in 1985… 'I wanted to start with that, and let the story grow'. ”
It seems he was inspired by the work of Brian Froud, a fantasy illustrator and conceptual designer. The passage then reads on,
"Froud began immersing himself in books of folk traditions, native philosophies and folk art. He too was fascinated by the idea of creating a whole world, complete in every detail.”
and as an artist myself, I can imagine the complete joy and wonder and passion that both Froud and Henson had together when creating this fully fleshed out fantasy world with mystical creatures, which then hundreds of people would work on together to create, bringing the vision to life. It's honestly enchantingly magical.
They decided the characters would be part puppet, part costume. The creatures evolved. Thousands of storyboards were created. The story was developed more and more and more. It grew into the fantasy the film is today.
And here are some other facts for you!
-Froud went on the marry one of the doll-makers that also worked at Henson studios and then worked as the concept designer for the film Labyrinth. -One of the creature's armour/costume weighed 70 pounds. -There was a TV monitor inside the bellies of the heavier creatures. -They searched for dancers, mimes, acrobats and clowns to be expressive in the bodies. -A Swiss performance artist called Jean-Pierre Amiel was in charge of choreographing the creature movement in the film. -Henson and Froud worked out a whole map, they wanted to make the world feel fully realised as if it was filmed on another planet. -It was shot as a silent film and the dialogue and music were added after.Click here for the book I looked at if you want to read it yourself!
Internet Archive Dive
There are a handful of sites I had a browse through relating to the film in the decades that followed the films release. For example, Jim Hensons website from 1997-early 2000s. When you click on The Dark Crystal in his filmography, there's a nice description of the film along with some audio clips, video clips, art and, excitingly, an online store. The online store mainly contains VHS tapes from what I can see, which one day, I would love to own the VHS tape for this film. It's definitely on my wishlist!
The art tab contains some GREAT original storyboards. Here's an example:
I was able to download the video clip from the video tab, but err, yeah, it looks like 144p which must've been amazing to download and see at the time buuuuut it looks a bit too chopped up for me to share here.
Now here's the reallyfun part. I also browsed through some magazines from the time. There are wonderuflly a lot of magazines from the 80s on there, from all different countries, talking about the film. There was even a portion on it in MAD magazine:
Here's one of my personal favourites, a Japanese magazine: 
and I love the layout of this page from a German magazine too: 
My eyes are singing! Magazine design is cool.
1983 Game
I'm not going to touch too much on the game for now, since I want to try out the turn-based one from 2020 as well, but there was a game developed by Sierra On-Line (from King's Quest and Space Quest and Gabriel Knight and original Leisure Suit Larry fame) released in 1983. The game was a “Hi-Res Adventure” and looked like this:
It does have it's charms. The game was part of a “Hi-Res Adventure” series. You could play the game on Apple II, PC-98 and the Atari 8-bit etc. and it is a purely text-based with non-animated graphics. I must admit, some of these screenshots reminds me of a colouring book. And that's not a bad thing persay, but if you were looking for something more challenging, this might not have been the best game to play. But it you wanted a text version of the film, it's cute.
And there we have it! The Dark Crystal to me is something very unique. It has an atmosphere that CG will not quite be able to replace and I hope since the 80s it's gotten more attention. If you want to feel like you're in a dark, mystical dream with great story-telling and an eerie yet beautiful atmosphere, then give this a try. Maybe it'll bore you, who knows, but some of you may love it, and I hope some of you reading this already love it.
Thank you for reading!
✰Written by Iris Lyoko✰