The Dark Crystal

Rated PG

Catholic-ometer: 1 of 5

Enjoyability: 3 of 5

Having been impressed by Labrynth, I decided to watch one of Henson's other less-watched films; the Dark Crystal, knowing almost nothing about it, except that it was a fantasy film about characters in a world full of strange creatures.  It sounded, from this alone, like something I would like.  You see, I'm a big lover of fantasy stories of all types.

The premise of this movie is that in another world, there is a crystal, which seems to influence the wellbeing of the planet and its people.  The crystal cracked, and this led, apparently, to an evil race, named the skeksis, seizing power over it.  They use it, along with their scouts, the crystal bats, and their shock troops; the insectoid Garthim, to enforce a rein of terror over all the less powerful races.  Meanwhile, a race of mystics have been raising a young gelfling (like an elf with only eight fingers and a very low nose,) for his destiny of fulfilling a prophecy; recovering the lost shard of the crystal and returning it to where it belongs, thus robbing the skeksis of their power.  The Gelfling's name is Jen.  In his quest to restore the crystal to its true form, Jen meets up with a female Gelfling named Kira, and her furball Fizzgig, all of them having lost loved ones to the skeksis, and eager to put an end to their reign.

Done right, this could be a charming story about grief, redemption and love.  However, this movie is not done right.  For one thing, neither of the two main characters seems to have much of any personality to them.  They exist to assist in the story, and their backgrounds consist of a series of loose associations and talents.  They're both about as bland as can be, and not much of anything is ever learned about them.  This is the first big problem I had with the film.  It gets caught up in its alien worldbuilding and odd visuals, and forgets that it's supposed to be telling a story here.

The second big problem with this movie, and for me, the most serious, is that the whole thing, from start to finish, is essentially one long piece of new age propaganda.  I've seen signs of this is Henson's work before, but never to this degree.  The prominence of the crystal, the sorcery of the mystics, the dream-sharing between the Gelflings, the poor understanding of the relationship between body and soul demonstrated by the movie's ending (in which people essentially merge into one another,) the clear failure to grasp what an "essence" is, and finally, the bunk new age ideology spouted by the shimmering aliens at the end about how "we are all one."  This type of thing alone is enough to turn me off to the film.

There's also a not-very-forgivable scene of the two gelflings sleeping together in the woods.  Granted, they are essentially puppets, but the whole movie takes itself so seriously, that I have no doubt what this was meant to convey.

If it seems like I'm complaining a lot about this film considering the grade I gave it, this is only because I really did appreciate some of the worldbuilding, scenery and creative creatures that Henson and Company came up with for this flick.  They're very beautiful, visually-impressive, and they capture the imagination, but it's not worth putting up with the problems this film has.