The Dark Crystal... does NOT live up... barely.

 by Amanda Treat

Actual photo of a 5 year old watching The Dark Crystal

What Jim wanted to do, and it was totally his vision, was to get back to the darkness of the original Grimm fairy tales. He thought it was fine to scare children. He didn't think it was healthy for children to always feel safe." - Frank Oz, talking about Jim Henson's creation of The Dark Crystal. 

Rewatching this movie took my mind back to a deeply bad place. It's a haunting, nauseating memory bank, where I keep flashbacks of time I accidently tipped over a robin's nest and broke her eggs on the pavement, or my first grade class watching the Challenger explosion, or that time I saw a kid on his bike get hit by a car.* I get Jim Henson's view that kids need some toughness, but... really? Did we REALLY need this movie to scare the daylights out of children? Isn't the world scary enough?

(And now, rereading that above paragraph, I realize it sounds super depressing. Look what you made me do to this post, Dark Crystal! Do you want me to write a review of "Requiem for a Dream" next? Because that's where this is heading!)

(Ahem.)

The Dark Crystal has a cult following, and rightly so. It immerses you into a visually stunning landscape with some of the most detailed and creative-looking puppet characters ever seen. The sounds of this film drill into your synapses; some of us will be hearing high pitched "Mmmmm" sounds on our death beds. Don't believe me? I dare you to watch more than 20 seconds of this Skeksis fan video without shuddering.** 

I actually love the beautiful hideousness of this film's design. Everything looks ominous, and weirdly a little moist. I also give full kudos for the terror that it still invokes for me. It had been over 30 years since I had seen The Dark Crystal, and the moment the Garthim burst through the wall -- I felt like that terrified 5 year old sitting in her neighbor's den all over again. This film is still scary, ironically, because all the fantasy creatures look so damn realistic. 

Before the Kool Aid guy made it fun

Reluctantly, Jess and I voted that The Dark Crystal does not live up. For all the detailed world-building, the plot and the main character are lacking. Jen is a bland hero; we would have rather had Kira or Aughra leading us on this quest. The narrator and many of the characters spend too much time explaining 1000 years' worth of Planet Thra's history. We didn't need it. 

From a kid's point of view, it's pretty intuitive without the exposition: the human-looking characters are good, and they must defeat the ugly characters that keep killing everyone.

I also want to point out that the Grimm fairy tales, that Jim Henson referenced, usually worked as cautionary lessons for children: 

• Don't tell strangers where you are going, or else a wolf might eat your grandma. 
• Don't take apples from strangers, or else you might end up poisoned.
• Don't eat the candy siding off that loner lady's gingerbread house in the woods, or else she might try to eat you.
• Don't write a story about a guy with a vaguely Jewish-sounding name who turns straw to gold, or else... the internet might call you anti-semitic 150 years after you and your brother died... 

...And so on... my point here is that the Grimm fairy tales used fear to teach children life lessons. That gave them their depth and staying power in our consciousness.

The Dark Crystal doesn't have a lesson to teach. It's just scary for the sake of being scary... and 5 year old me doesn't like that one bit.   

"Do you kids want some candy?"

Listen to Jess's and my thoughts about The Dark Crystal below, or on our other podcast platforms here.

*The kid on the bike was okay in the end. He got to ride in an ambulance, which - at the time -  all the kids in the neighborhood thought was pretty epic.

**Good god, now that Mmmm sound is stuck in my head.