They all have disgusting bodies, some shriveled and scrawny (though they wisely wear voluminous robes to cover this, because that helps!), some grotesquely fat and leaking puss, most a combination of simpering, snarling, drooling, belching, farting, whining, grumbling, retching. All they do is stomp around and yell at each other and then laugh about it. Which, of course: the Skeksis! The Skeksis are raptor-vulture-looking shitheads, basically a group of patently evil monsters that have been gaslighting the citizens of Thra for generations. The titular crystal mainly hangs out in the background as the Skeksis mess around with different ways to ruin stuff. Sadly for the Gelflings, Podlings, and other denizens of Thra-including sad long-legged horses, put-upon roly-polies (often conscripted as wheels), and giant Spitters (spiders)-the world has begun to die, courtesy of the Darkening, which is a sort of emotionally charged magically destructive greenhouse gas. It feels like a real inhabited place (for puppet people), packed with bracing snow-capped mountain vistas, enchanted woodlands, an underground world of phosphorescent wonder all that lovely fantasy world shit. Other than the rigid feudal social structure that keeps the have-nots in line, the world of Thra seems pretty sweet! The puppet masters have expertly honored Jim Henson’s vision and gamely expanded the universe to add a colorful lushness to the locales. This is very relatable, as we are also all going to die because we didn’t respect nature enough. Now, decades later, we get the prequel and get to put sweet Gelfling faces to the future victims of the mass extinction event. Speaking of these real-world applications, The Dark Crystal came out in the 1980s, which was just about the last moment in time we could have properly turned back the tide of man-made climate change. It is, simply put, the high-fantasy puppet show about climate change and genocide we never knew we needed. And if he didn’t understand my youthful slang, I’d tell him it was quite good indeed. If I could, I would gladly tell the Ghost of Jim Henson that The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance slaps.
#Watch the dark crystal series
Your choice though! For those who already love the film, the series is a perfect accompaniment, the rare reboot/prequel/reimagining that seems to mostly hit all the right notes, as it displays an obvious reverence and fidelity for the source material while pushing forward in a much more complex, dare I say it, prestige-puppet fashion. And yes, we also learned much about life and love and crystal shards and puppets: We learned that “tug noot causes explosive belching” and that Alicia Vikander’s voice is good (which, I guess, I already knew).įirst and foremost, to any intrepid or insomniac bingers: Do you need to watch the original film to enjoy this? No! In fact, it’s probably less of an immediate bummer if you don’t already know that this #Resistance ends in defeat and ethnic cleansing. Together we settled in for the long haul and watched various puppets go on various puppet adventures and learn various puppet life lessons.
My youngest cat, Ghostface, somewhat feral but cute as hell, was my viewing companion. I consumed all 10 episodes in one sitting/lying down, punctuated only by refilling my glass with bottom-shelf vodka and mid-shelf orange juice.
My mission: to give The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance a fair shake and to watch it all at once. The long-awaited expansion of this universe in the form of a prequel series on Netflix was something that could possibly allow me to hear the original film’s melody for the first time. He was Link from Legend of Zelda, if Link emanated querulous Elijah Wood energy. There was a deep Sesame Street–like earnestness pervading The Dark Crystal, and I found the Gelfling hero, Jen, unequivocally lame. Unless it’s a Silver Jews song, the words alone don’t quite do the complete package justice. Because I came to it a bit later than others, the film felt to me like reading the lyrics of a song you loved without the music. Obviously the finished product was audacious, a technical achievement that inspired and brought joy to millions-I just wasn’t among the millions.
I always considered it sort of a dour proto- Labyrinth, sans David Bowie and his bulge. The mythology of Thra didn’t grab me by my nostalgia jugular. Jim Henson’s puppet-fantasy epic The Dark Crystal was never a film that quite entombed itself into my own personal canon.
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