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Still, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is different from the Harry Potter or Game of Thrones franchises, in that it’s not trying to be cool. This is one of the reasons Dark Crystal has picked a great time to come back. Few have to hide their interest in fantasy now. There are popular media franchises that follow groups of friends or family members playing D&D together. Nerds are running the world – not the right ones, but there they are.
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Trekkies could handle other planets filled with alien humanoid creatures, perhaps, but that plus swords and sorcery and puppets would have made Dark Crystal even more niche – especially before the likes of Netflix was around, with a business model involving catering to niche interests.Ī few Peter Jacksons, Harry Potters, and Games of Thrones later, fantasy is back, baby. In the era of Seinfeld and (peak) South Park, something this Tolkein-y and serious could have tanked. So, cult classic status notwithstanding, the later 80s, 90s, and early 2000s were probably not a great time for any new entries into the Dark Crystal franchise. Satire of fantasy was a popular way for people to connect with this stuff without being ostracized: The Princess Bride is a hit in no small part due to how it strikes a perfect balance between homage to, and ridicule of, the genre. Dungeons & Dragons was still hugely popular, even after the Satanism scares, but it was all secretive if you were found out as a D&D player, not only would your peers bully you, but your parents might send you to a re-education camp. But when I was growing up, in the 1980s and 90s, everyone had to pretend to be too ironic and cynical for fantasy for a while. Tolkien’s works had a little spike of popularity in the 1960s, maybe because the big, love-conquering-evil themes (and stoner Hobbits) appealed to hippies. There are elves.Īll this was deeply, painfully uncool for a long, long time. Everyone has very serious-sounding names with lots of syllables. Characters speak in riddles and study magic until they can stave off mortality itself. Someone sets off on a quest against a world-threatening evil power every encounter is a life-and-death struggle. In modern fantasy stories, of which Tolkien is the ur-text, everything that happens is hugely meaningful and important. But I didn’t know if I would be taken by the writing.
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So when the new, prequel series was announced, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, I knew I would watch it for the art of the puppetry and the overall visual magic. I barely remembered the story after a few years, but I remembered that painstakingly crafted world.
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The lasting impression it made on me was of a gorgeous, intricately constructed, analog (as opposed to CGI) world – whole landscapes full of critters and various species of flora, made entirely from puppet-stuff. I finally saw The Dark Crystal for the first time as an adult.
It was also seen, rightly, as something too scary for small children. I think adults around me didn’t respect it, as a film with no fully human, non-puppet actors. But somehow, even as a fan of Labyrinth and The Muppet Show and everything Jim Henson, I never saw The Dark Crystal as a kid. It features a girl protagonist, puppets that seem like living, breathing characters, and great music (David Bowie!). Its storyline is familiar in a mythological sort of way but novel and fresh.
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Myself, I was a devotee of Labyrinth, a movie that has arguably stood the test of time better than Dark Crystal despite being a box office flop. When I was growing up, a lot of us nerds were either Dark Crystal kids or Labyrinth kids. The world is finally ready for more Dark Crystal. Why was Jim Henson’s puppet studio creating The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance now, after so long? Wasn’t it a little late? After watching the series, though, I think it came out at exactly the right time. It was initially puzzling to me why a TV series associated with the 1982 film The Dark Crystal was coming out 37 years later.
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