The Dark Crystal Review

The Dark Crystal

1982

The Dark Crystal is a 1982 joint British and American fantasy film directed by puppeteers Jim Henson and Frank Oz. The film follows a Gelfling (humanoid race) on another planet in the distant past,embarking on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal, and so restore order to his world.

This film is a joy to watch and really captures your attention with its bright fantastical colours, skilled puppetry work and elegant cinematics. You'll find yourself fully immersed in the films atmospheres and action that you may almost forget that its all done with puppets and animatronics, theres no animation involved! The film has no human characters, but its still easy to really get into it and understand the story and also the underlying features and meanings of the film. "Even more incredible: the puppets enhance what is otherwise only an average story" is what Jesse Hassenger from popmatters.com had to say about Dark Crystal, and I believe it is a true statement in that Dark Crystal's plot is quite simplistic, but effective in the way it is portrayed.

"Its reassuring for us to think of good and evil as completely separate states; it allows us the luxury of believing that one might finally win out over the other. This movie, however, tells the rather more disconcerting truth: neither good nor evil can survive without the other."

The film is about good triumphing over evil when evil has the upper hand, an infamous plot, and this film is no exception when it comes to making the two sides apparent. What is very different though about Dark Crystal is that, for a film predominantly for children, it goes quite deep in suggesting that there needs to be a fair share of both good and evil for us to survive; without good, there is no evil. This isn't very common to see in a PG film and is a good thing to include.

"However in the end, despite some of the darker imagery and some staggering effects work, this is fairly standard stuff. It does say a lot for the designs and the effects that The Dark Crystal has managed to avoid falling into obscurity but this isn’t nearly substantial enough to join the very best of 80s family entertainment."

I would agree that the film lacks in the storyline aspects, but it still deserves to shine in terms of visuals and should be looked up to as an "80's classic" for its DESIGN. Its a one of a kind film and it would be interesting to see more of these around.