THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
There are some adventures that can take unlikely directions. There can be a few that are unnecessary and then some worth taking.
PLOT
The Dark Crystal takes place in the fictional world of Thra, where a powerful that has brought life now cracks, and has created two new races: cruel Skeksis and gentle Mystics. Among the latter is the youngest Gelfling named Jen (Stephen Garlick) who is instructed by his dying master urSu to find the missing shard of the crystal to heal it. If he doesn’t find it before the planet’s three suns meet, the Skeksis could rule forever. After General SkekUng (Michael Kilgarriff) defeats the chamberlain SkekSil (Barry Dennen) for the throne, he discovers of Jen’s existence and sends a Garthim army after him. The protagonist is able to find the shard thanks to encountering the oracle Aughra, but she gets swept by the Garthim who were after him. As he avoids capture, he meets a female of his kind named Kira (Lisa Maxwell) and together, they learn to share each other’s memories. Their time in her pod village gets cut short when Garthim catch up again, who capture her podlings. As they make haste to the castle together, they find the Wall of Destiny where they read a prophecy of the crystal: “When single shines the triple sun, What was sundered and undone Shall be whole, the two made one By Gelfling hand or else by none”. Reading this, they understand they must take the shard to the Castle of the Crystal. The chamberlain tries to trick them both to come with him to the castle, but they ignore him as they arrive via long legged Landstriders. When they get there, their decision try rescuing the Podlings leads to the Garthim killing their ride. They almost fall off a cliff to their deaths, but Kira prevents that when flying to the castle’s catacombs. When the chamberlain confronts them again, Jen strikes him with a shard which also effects a Mystic Chanter. Enraged, SkekSil buries him in a cave and takes Kira with him as his own peace offering to the Skeksis. The emperor plans to use Kira to regain youth by draining her life essence, but that does not work when an imprisoned Aughra tells her to call the imprisoned animals in the laboratory for help. That helps as it would free them both while pushing the scientist SkekTek (Steve Whitmire) into the shaft of the castle, which also causes the mystic alchemist to disintegrate. Jen catches up with Kira and reach the crystal’s chamber, seeing a conjunction ceremony between the Skeksis occurring. Jen leaps onto the crystal but drops the shard in the process. Just when Kira tosses it to him which he catches, she gets fatally stabbed by the High Priest SkekZok. As the crystal is restored, both Mystics and Skeksiks reunite into their original urSkek incarnations who reveal they left the world to the Gelflings after arrogantly shattering the crystal. The film ends with the urSkeks resurrecting Kira before restoring the castle to it’s harmonious form and ascending to toward the suns.
THOUGHTS
When you think about the names of Jim Henson & Frank Oz, the first thing you'll think about is their contribution in puppeteering and voicing the Muppets back in the 70s. What many audiences seem to forget is that their range as filmmakers go past that as filmmakers when the 80s came around. Now would I call this better than any Muppet movie? Not exactly, but doing something that involves such immersive world building cannot be ignored. What both men brought to the table was their inventive project yet because scene by scene is nonstop captivation because every set piece felt so alive at their helm. The designs of the Mystics gave this accurate elder approach as if a dinosaur resembled a human and that's a compliment because I love dinosaurs. The Skeksis were dead on creepy because they looked like crows cosplaying as French Revolution era people, which makes sense because that was a wild period for people to live through. The Garthims scared the crap out of me for being giant ass crabs that mean business. The gelflings reminded of a interesting blend of elves & fairies. Even brief creatures like the landstriders and the fizzgig were spectacular to behold because they're so creative upon design. The same can be said with all the set pieces surrounding the characters. What I think that makes the whole film special overall is the way it tells the audience to pursue what you want even when there are challenging obstacles. If you don't push yourself to do it, you'll never be happy and that's the last thing you want. It is through the shared perspective of Jen & Kira that moves us because like the Mystics, they're the kindest souls that want a better tomorrow for the planet itself and overcome personal fears to do it. Before the Netflix series gave a deep dive, I think the urSkeks' past motive in tampering with the crystal was a reflection on how we let our ambitions get the best of us and just because we feel like we can or know it does not mean we should. This is proven with the fact it led to the consequential existence of skeksis. The dynamic of both General SkekUng and the chamberlain SkekSil, they represent two of the seven deadly sins, wrath & envy, because they're so self centered being that they'll do anything to have all the power for themselves. Thankfully, these living personas became dormant once the crystal was restored. Of all the characters that stand out the most for some reason was Aughra. Oz may have done the puppeteering for her, but Bille Whitelaw brought a whole other layer for the character for being the most cantankerous in the story. She's like this because she's seen the world fall apart before and is not in the mood to live through another disaster. It was so smart for her to not straight up give Jen the shard and have him figure it out through the music of his flute because that would help her see how much he wants to save Thra. Had she not done that, I'm not sure if he would Jen would be motivated enough to do the absolute. This film is amazing in its own right, but there are still things I scratch my head about to where I don’t even think the Netflix series could figure out. Like why does urSu choose to tell Jen of the prophecy on his dying day? If he doesn’t want the Skeksis to take over permanently, it would’ve saved a lot of trouble. I know it’s part of Aughra’s character to be crude towards strangers, but if Jen is asking important questions about the crystal/shard, she shouldn’t complain about it because he’s the only one destined to save the world. I’m even stunned on how Jen & Kira choose to first have a canoe trip on their way to the castle without even using a spell to make them invisible to the eyes of Garthim. If that canoe trip was the reason they get spotted at the village, it’s not a surprise. It does seem ironic for the Garthim to twice fail at abducting Gelfling, but I do feel like the crystal bats could’ve told them which ones they’re supposed to get while also getting the podlings. And ain’t it odd no one tries to close their eyes when they’re getting their energy drained from the crystal? I know Kira uses the animals, but it’s crazy the podlings don’t every try. Lastly, Kira should’ve flown to Jen to prevent getting stabbed and you can’t say that wasn’t an option when she had enough space to do it despite being cornered. Other than that, this movie is still worth watching. In short, The Dark Crystal is a fantastic fantasy film for all the bit of creativity shown in more ways than one. If puppetry is your favorite form of storytelling, check this out.
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