The Dark Crystal (1982)

Well, it wasn’t like I remembered it but this muppet/puppet fantasy flick was an ok waste of time and should keep kids age four to ten glued to the set throughout. The story is your basic good vs. evil deal with a young muppet, I mean “Gelfling” named Jen who is the last of his race which was murdered off by the evil Skeksis; big ugly lizards who rule the planet the film is set in. The Skeksis draw their power from the “Dark Crystal” which was once a pure crystal thousands of years ago that balanced the power of the land. However, the Crystal shattered thus dividing the world into two races, the evil Skeksis and the peaceful, magical Mystics. An ancient prophecy foretells that a Gelfling will find the lost shard of the crystal and thus destroy the Skeksis and their evil reign.

I first saw this one way back in 1982 at the age of 4, and it scared the shit out of me. I’m not sure if it was those damn Skeksis, the way they drink their slaves “essence” or what, but it did creep me out. The whole film is comprised of puppets with no humans in sight and for 1982 in a pre-CGI world; I thought this was an excellent display of F/X wizardry and art. Some of the costumes began five years prior to filming, so you can imagine the time that was involved in creating them. Reading a couple other reviews on the film I noticed many ragged on the special effects, but for the year this was made I thought they were pretty damn impressive. The story itself is average with everything being fairly predictable if you are 8 years of age and up, all those under that will get a kick out of this one, and maybe a couple of those older as well.