The Dark Crystal
The Dark Crystal is a 1982 dark fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. It stars the voices of Stephen Garlick, Lisa Maxwell, Billie Whitelaw, Percy Edwards, and Barry Dennen. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company and distributed by Universal Pictures. The plot revolves around Jen and Kira, two Gelflings on a quest to restore balance to the world of Thra and overthrow the evil, ruling Skeksis by restoring a powerful broken Crystal.
This article is about the 1982 feature film. For the 2019 Netflix series, see The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. For the 1983 video game, see The Dark Crystal (video game).The Dark Crystal
Jim Henson
- Jim Henson
- Gary Kurtz
- Universal Pictures
- Associated Film Distribution[a] (United States)
- United International Pictures (United Kingdom)[2]
- December 13, 1982 (New York City)
- December 17, 1982 (United States)
- February 17, 1983 (United Kingdom)
93 minutes[3]
- United States
- United Kingdom
English
$41.4 million[6]
It was marketed as a family film, but was notably darker than the creators' previous material. The animatronics used in the film were considered groundbreaking for the time, with most creatures, like the Gelflings, requiring around four puppeteers to achieve full manipulation. The primary concept artist was fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, famous for his distinctive fairy and dwarf designs. Froud also collaborated with Henson on the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth.
The Dark Crystal was produced by Gary Kurtz, while the screenplay was written by David Odell, with whom Henson previously worked as a staff writer for The Muppet Show. The film score was composed by Trevor Jones. The film initially received mixed reviews from mainstream critics; while being criticized for its darker, more dramatic tone in contrast to Henson's previous works, it was praised for its narrative, aesthetic, and characters. Over the years, it has been re-evaluated by critics and has garnered a cult following.[7]
An Emmy Award-winning prequel television series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, premiered on Netflix in 2019 and lasted for one season.
Release[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Dark Crystal was released in 858 theaters in North America on December 17, 1982 and finished third for the weekend with a gross of $4,657,335, behind Tootsie and The Toy, performing better than some people expected.[24] In its initial weekends, it had a limited appeal with some audiences for various reasons, including parental concerns about its dark nature when contrasted with Henson's family-friendly Muppet franchise.[25] In its third weekend, it moved up to second place nationally with a gross of $5,405,071 from 1,052 screens.[26] It made $40,577,001 in its box office run, managing to turn a profit. The film became the 16th highest-grossing film of 1982 within North America.[27] To date, it technically remains as one of the highest-grossing puppet animated films of all time, particularly for its domestic gross.
It made £2.4 million in the UK.[28]
Reception[edit]
The film received a mixed response upon its original release, but has earned a more positive reception in later years, becoming a favorite with fans of Henson and fantasy.[29] Vincent Canby of The New York Times negatively reviewed the film, describing it as a "watered down J. R. R. Tolkien... without charm as well as interest."[30] Kevin Thomas gave it a more positive assessment in the Los Angeles Times: "Unlike many screen fantasies, The Dark Crystal casts its spell from its very first frames and proceeds so briskly that it's over before you realize it. You're left with the feeling that you have just awakened from a dream."[31] Richard Corliss of Time magazine wrote: "The invention is impressive, but there is little indication of the Henson-Oz trademark: a sense of giddy fun. Audiences nourished on the sophisticated child's play of the Sesame Street Muppets and the music-hall camaraderie of The Muppet Show may not be ready to relinquish pleasure for awe as they enter The Dark Crystal's palatial cavern."[32] Variety praised the film as "a dazzling technological and artistic achievement ...that could teach a lesson in morality to youngsters at the same time it is entertaining their parents."[33]
Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote the main characters were "the softest and potentially weakest figures" in the film, but nevertheless, "The Dark Crystal leaves no doubt that Jim Henson and his colleagues have reached a point where they can create and sustain a powerfully enchanting form of cinematic fantasy."[34] Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune awarded the film 2+1⁄2 out of four stars in which he felt "...the resultant absence of dramatic tension cripples 'Crystal,' which doesn't have much going for it save for weird characters, who look like they just walked in from the bar scene in Star Wars. In fact, a lot of this movie looks like it was ripped off from Star Wars."[35] Colin Greenland, reviewing for Imagine magazine, stated that "The Dark Crystal is a technical masterpiece with splendid special effects work by a team two dozen strong. It may be that they did well to keep the story simple and then lavish a wealth of detail on it, rather than go for a more complicated fantasy and fail."[36]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "The Dark Crystal's narrative never quite lives up to the movie's visual splendor, but it remains an admirably inventive and uniquely intense entry in the Jim Henson canon."[37] On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[38]
In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Fantasy Films list.[39]
Novelization[edit]
A tie-in novelization of the film was written by A. C. H. Smith. Henson took a keen interest in the novelization, as he considered it a legitimate part of the film's world rather than just an advertisement. He originally asked Alan Garner to write it, but Garner declined on account of prior engagements. Henson and Smith met several times over meals to discuss the progress of the manuscript. According to Smith, their only major disagreement had arisen over his dislike of the Podlings, which he considered "boring". He included a scene in which a Garthim carrying a sackful of Podlings fell down a cliff and crushed them. Henson considered this scene to be an element of "gratuitous cruelty" that did not fit well into the scope of the story. In order to assist Smith in his visualizing the world of The Dark Crystal, Henson invited him to visit Elstree Studios during filming.[50] In June 2014, Archaia Entertainment reprinted the novelization, with included extras such as some of Brian Froud's illustrations and Jim Henson's notes.[51]
Cancelled sequel[edit]
During the development phase of The Dark Crystal, director Jim Henson and writer David Odell discussed ideas for a possible sequel. Almost 25 years later, Odell and his wife Annette Duffy pieced together what Odell could recall from these discussions to draft a script for The Power of the Dark Crystal.[52] Genndy Tartakovsky was initially hired in January 2006 to direct and produce the film through The Orphanage animation studios in California.[53]
However, faced with considerable delays, the Jim Henson Company announced a number of significant changes in a May 2010 press release: It was going to partner with Australia-based Omnilab Media to produce the sequel, screenwriter Craig Pearce had reworked Odell and Duffy's script, and directing team Michael and Peter Spierig were replacing Tartakovsky. In addition, the film would be released in stereoscopic 3D.[54]
During a panel held at the Museum of the Moving Image on September 18, 2011, to commemorate the legacy of Jim Henson, his daughter Cheryl revealed that the project was yet again on hiatus.[55] By February 2012 Omnilab Media and the Spierig brothers had parted ways with the Henson Company due to budgetary concerns; production on the film has been suspended indefinitely.[56] In May 2014, Lisa Henson confirmed that the film was still in development, but it was not yet in pre-production.[57]
Ultimately, plans for a feature film were scrapped, and the unproduced screenplay was adapted into a 12-issue comic book series The Power of the Dark Crystal from Archaia Comics and BOOM! Studios, released in 2017.[58]
Spin-offs[edit]
Prequel comics[edit]
Legends of the Dark Crystal, an original English-language manga written by Barbara Kesel with art by Heidi Arnhold, Jessica Feinberg, and Max Kim, was published by Tokyopop. Its story is set hundreds of years before the events of The Dark Crystal, after the Great Conjunction which saw the splitting of the urSkeks into the Mystics and the Skeksis, but before the extermination of the Gelflings. The first volume of the series came out November 2007, followed sometime later by the second in August 2010. A third installment had been originally planned but was canceled and subsequently merged into the second volume.[59]
Another comic book prequel, The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths, was published by Archaia Entertainment as a series of three graphic novels.[60] The Henson Company and Archaia began collaborating on this project in late 2009.[61] A brief preview was made available on Free Comic Book Day in May 2011,[62] and the first installment was released January 2012, shortly thereafter spending two weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list of hardcover graphic books. In February 2013, the second installment was officially released. The third and final part was released in October 2015.
Prequel novels[edit]
On July 1, 2013, an announcement was made by The Jim Henson Company, in association with Grosset and Dunlap (a publishing division of Penguin Group USA) that they would be hosting a Dark Crystal Author Quest contest to write a new Dark Crystal novel, as a prequel to the original film. It would be set in the Dark Crystal world during a Gelfling Gathering. The winning author was J.M. (Joseph) Lee of Minneapolis, Minnesota, whose story, "The Ring of Dreams," was selected from almost 500 contest submissions.[63]
The novel series consists of four books: Shadows of the Dark Crystal, released on June 28, 2016; Song of the Dark Crystal, released July 18, 2017; Tides of the Dark Crystal, released December 24, 2018; and Flames of the Dark Crystal, released on August 27, 2019. Together, the novels serve to establish the setting of the Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, focusing on adventures of some of the series' side characters.