The Dark Crystal is a 1982 dark fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company and distributed by Universal Pictures.
It is a 1 hour and 33 minute movie featuring a mix of talents of traditional practical effects, puppetry and costumery. yes! not all characters are puppets! some characters other than the traditional puppet characters use a mix of costumery, puppetry and involved at the time, sophisticated electronics as well as telecommunications.
Why yes! Along with classical tecniques using traditional puppetry and cinematography trickery, many of the characters and sets are to scale! Characters such as the Mystics, Mother Aughra and the skeksis are advanced costumes, often taking more than one person to puppet and in Mother Aughra's case the character’s facial movements and twitches were caused via electric controls and yards of wire. Due to the visibility being hard to see inside the costumes, they were often had a specially made, miniaturized television monitor so the actor and the supplimental puppeteers could see what the camera was recording in real time.
Such a technique was often used by the larger Jim Hension characters, to name a friendly face, Big Bird from popular childrens show Sesame Street at the time had a similar puppeteering technique as the skeksis! Where one hand was used to puppet the eyes and mouth, and the other was used to gesture with the other hand. As well as using a smaller television inside the costume to have better visibility and to see the recording in real time so the puppeteer can react accordingly to the other actors.
The puppets and characters in The Dark Crystal took yeard to make as they were all made by hand to be unique, despite the mind-boggling number that had to be made. A small team was assigned to each of the major characters (Such as the Skeksis or the Gelflings) to create their costumes/puppets. The teams were also encouraged to add their own unique details to help the characters stand out. The artists made everything, right down to hand painting the glass eyes. Giving each character its almost lifelike and unique quality, serving more into the uncanny valley that people feared and loved about the movie.
Due to the combination of costumery and puppetry being so large and to scale for life, Many of the sets such as Mother Aughra's Orrery, The Mystics Village and The Castle Of The Crystal Interiors are built on large soundstages. In fact, over 80 plasterers worked tirelessly to craft these intricate environments that resembled works of art on a human scale. Very few sets were not built to scale, one exception would be the large sweeping views of the Castle of the Crystal. Using perspective and practical effects to make the minature to look as if it was a large intimidating castle in the distance.
Jen, raised by the noble race called the Mystics, has been told that he is the last survivor of his own race, the Gelflings. He sets out to try to find a shard of the dark crystal, a powerful gem that once provided balance to the universe. After the crystal was broken, the evil Skeksis used sinister means to gain control. Jen believes that he can repair the dark crystal and bring peace back to the world, if he can only find the remaining shard.
Aughra or Mother Aughra was the embodiment of Thra, acting as the world's eyes and voice. Created by the Crystal of Truth shortly after Thra's formation in the Age of Innocence to bring peace between plants and animals, Aughra guided the Gelfling in their early development, but later shifted her attention to the stars after being seduced by the otherworldly knowledge of the urSkeks during the Age of Harmony. During the Age of Division, she abandoned Thra in order to explore the Uni-Verse, returning later to guide the Gelfling resistance against the Skeksis.
The Podlings, also known as Pod People due to gardening and living in large pod like plants, were a sapient race native to Skarith, a region in thra. They are used as a servant class in the castle of the crystal in the movie.
Gelfling were a sapient species native to Skarith. They were the closest race to Thra, and were by far the planet's most widespread race. They were a group of peaceful people who lived in harmony with the natural world and had a rich culture which valued song, dance and storytelling. They mostly lived in tribal or clan-based societies which were dominated by females, who differed from their male counterparts by having wings. Gelfling had the ability to share memories with each other through Dreamfasting.
Fizzgigs were small mammalian creatures native to the Endless Forest and the sigil animal of the Stonewood Clan, a gelfling clan. They were quadrupeds sporting small paws which were usually concealed beneath their long fur, which they typically only used when walking for short distances. For longer distance, they preferred to roll into a ball which could move at considerable speed. The character Kira, owns one as a pet who is referred to the same name as its species.
Landstriders were herbivorous quadrupeds characterized by their cream-coloured hides, stilt-like legs and prominent whiskers. They stood four or five times higher than a Gelfling, and were primarily browsers, using their long tongues to suck up nectar from flowering trees or strip leaves from branches. They were often used by Gelfling as a means of transportation. As shown in the movie, where Kira and Jen both used landstriders to ride to the castle of the crystal.
The urSkeks were an ancient race from the furthest reaches of the Uni-Verse, characterized by their tall, luminescent appearance, psychic abilities, and collectivist society. They conceived of everything in triune terms and considered duality a dangerous heresy.
A group of dissident urSkeks, known as Fallen urSkeks, were banished from their home world to Thra at the start of the Age of Harmony for attempting to use their world's crystal in a dangerous experiment meant to divide their light and dark selves. After a thousand trine of attempting to reform themselves, and influencing the cultural development of Thra's sentient races, the urSkeks sought to purify themselves and return to their homeworld through the power of the Crystal of Truth during the second Great Conjunction.
In so doing, each of the Fallen urSkeks inadvertently divided themselves into two separate beings; the violent, materialistic Skeksis, and the gentle, contemplative urRu.
Despite their separation, there was still a spiritual link between each urRu and Skeksis counterpart, a constant reminder that they were only two halves of the same being. If either was wounded, the other felt the pain and suffered an identical injury. If one died, both died.
The Skeksis were the self-proclaimed Lords of the Crystal, and rulers of an Empire which dominated Thra throughout the Age of Division. Like the urRu, they were offshoots of the urSkeks, personifying their knowledge and passion, but also their cruelty and aggression.
Tall, birdlike and reptilian in appearance, sporting four arms and a tail. They are considerably thin and lanky compared to their uRu counterparts.
The urRu, more commonly known as Mystics, were a race of natural wizards that lived during the Age of Division. Like the Skeksis, they were offshoots of the urSkeks, personifying their wisdom and spirituality, but lacking their passion and innovation.
The urRu shared the same basic body plan as their Skeksis counterparts, sporting four arms and a tail. However, the features of the urRu were much more mammalian. They had long necks covered with manes of thick gray hair, and their faces were wrinkled with runic patterns representing their lines of thought during long bouts of meditation, with some urRu having such spirals cover their entire bodies.
The Garthim were artificial lifeforms animated by the power of the Dark Crystal, intended to act as the army of the Skeksis Empire. They were created by skekTek The Scientist during the late Age of Division. Originally created to quell the Gelfling resistance, the Garthim were repurposed as an extermination force during the Garthim War after the Skeksis had learned of a prophecy that a Gelfling would reverse The Great Division and end their rule.
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