A thousand years ago the Crystal of Truth cracked and the world split into two races: the Skeksis, vulture-like creatures who rule from the castle, and the Mystics, slow wise beings in the valley. Jen, the last Gelfling, is told by his dying Mystic master to find the lost shard and heal the crystal before the Great Conjunction. The Dark Crystal has no human actors at all, and it is the darkest thing Jim Henson ever made.
What Happens On Thra
Jen finds the shard with Aughra, a one-eyed astronomer with a model of the solar system filling her house. He meets Kira, another Gelfling, who can fly, and her dog-like Fizzgig. The Skeksis drain the essence from the Podlings and from Gelflings to stay young, in a chair that is the film’s most frightening image. The Garthim, beetle soldiers, hunt them. The ending in the castle, with the three suns, the Chamberlain whimpering, and the Skeksis and Mystics merging, is not a children’s ending.
Why Puppeteers Still Study It
Brian Froud designed every creature, and the Skeksis were operated by two or three puppeteers each. Henson and Frank Oz shot it at Elstree over nearly a year. It was a modest hit in 1982 and the audience grew on video. The 2019 Netflix prequel series, Age of Resistance, was made with the same methods.
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