The Fantasy Epic Masterpiece On Prime Video From A Genius Director

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Star Wars fan, but even George Lucas’s lived-in sci-fi/western universe doesn’t hold a candle to the one Henson and Frank Oz created.

As alien as the Star Wars universe is, it’s still populated with relatable human characters. Meanwhile, The Dark Crystal‘s setting is entirely foreign in its composition.

The Dark Crystal features no human characters to relate to. Instead, the audience is treated to a fantasy land full of wonderous creatures, ranging from adorable to grotesque.

Every part of the movie has been lovingly fabricated from scratch, leaving almost no trace of our world whatsoever.

A few exterior shots of the European countryside are the only evidence that the movie has any connection to Earth. Even those are filmed carefully so as not to evoke any familiarity with real-life landmarks. When I say the world of Thra is fully realized, I mean it.

The story of The Dark Crystal is a bit convoluted, but I’ll do my best to summarize.

One thousand years before the movie starts, a single race of beings, the Urskeks, lived on the planet of Thra. When one of the Urskeks cracks the mysterious dark crystal, the race splits into two different species.

The peaceful Mystics resemble miniature brontosauruses with hair. They essentially live in a hippie commune where they ignore the other splinter group, the Skeksis.

Meanwhile, the evil, ugly, debaucherous Skeksis take over Thra and rule the planet as cruel overlords. The Skeksis resemble reptilian birdlike creatures with long beaks and piercing eyes.

If you saw The Dark Crystal as a child, chances are the vile Skeksis are permanently burnt into your brain. Being mentally scarred by the grotesque beasts is a common shared trauma of Xennials everywhere.

Just uttering “Mmmm, Gelfling!” around my wife is enough to make her shudder in disgust.

There is a prophecy that a third race of small, elven creatures, called the Gelflings, will be the Skeksis’s downfall. As a result, the Skeksis murder all but two Gelflings who are hidden from them by the peaceful Mystics.

These two Gelflings, Jen and Kira, are tasked with finding the missing shard of the dark crystal and repairing the gem. Once they do, the Mystics and Skeksis will again morph together into a single race.

I admit that The Dark Crystal‘s biggest flaw is its lack of accessibility. There’s a reason why similar films feature a normal human getting sucked into an otherworldly realm. Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz exists as an audience surrogate. In Labyrinth, Sarah is just as unfamiliar with Jareth’s world as we are. Alice learns the rules of Wonderland at the same time the viewer does.

The Dark Crystal, on the other hand, has no audience surrogate to explain the world of Thra to us. Henson throws us into this elaborate fantasy land, and it’s up to us to sink or swim. Most people, especially in 1982, sank.

Meanwhile, Jim Henson wanted the movie to be even less accessible. The original version of The Dark Crystal was filmed entirely in an alien dialect, with no English whatsoever.

After some disastrous test screenings, Henson begrudgingly redubbed the film in English and added a voice-over narration. Most audiences were still lost.

Despite its unwelcoming premise, The Dark Crystal actually did decently at the box office. The movie made $41.4 million during its theatrical run against a budget of $25 million. Critical reception was mixed.

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Many of the complaints lobbied against the film involved its overly serious tone and lack of character development.

Most critics agreed that the movie was breathtaking to look at but not very engaging from a character standpoint. I would argue—and I realize how pretentious this sounds—that most people didn’t “get” The Dark Crystal when it was released.

The Dark Crystal doesn’t ask you to relate to the characters. It doesn’t ask you to understand it or to follow the plot. The film wants one thing from you, and that’s to forget about the real world for 90 minutes and completely immerse yourself in the alien world of Thra.

If you can do that, you’ll enjoy it. If you can’t, it’s probably not the movie for you.

If the idea of throwing yourself into the deep end of a fantastical world full of alien creatures and settings sounds like your idea of a good time, go watch this movie, pronto. The Dark Crystal is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.