That was the best nap I’ve gotten in quite some time. Nary a plot point, intrigue, or unrepellant visual to make me wish my eyes were open for this one.
Being 100% culturally aware is next-to-impossible. Sometimes you miss stuff. Sometimes it’s inexcusable. If you were born before 1980 and lived in an English-speaking country, for instance, you should have seen E.T. at some point. Sometimes, however, it’s very excusable. In the 70s, I loved the Muppets, but by 1982, I had grown out of the need to adore pensive googily-eyed socks for the sake of adoring pensive googily-eyed socks, hence, I never saw The Dark Crystal. That is, I never saw The Dark Crystal until yesterday. Thank you, Fathom Events. And thank you, needless teenage rebellion for placing in my mind the idea that Muppets need no longer capture my attention, for you saved a potential childhood trauma. The Dark Crystal was godawful.
First of all, this is one of those films that requires five minutes of exposition just to get to the opening credits. Let me see if I can state this a succinctly as I can: a race of evil turtle-vultures (the Skeksis) worships what appears to be either a giant glowing misshapen eggplant or a Christmas ornament gone horribly wrong. Their object is to keep down every other puppet in the kingdom, which will happen so long as the eggplant doesn’t get its missing chandelier shard. That’s about it.
“Luckily” for us, Jim Henson and Frank Oz saw Star Wars a bunch if times and, hence, created Jen (voice of Henson), a Gelfling –whatever the Hell that is- who’s a puppet cross between Luke Skywalker and Cornelius from Planet of the Apes. Moments after introduction of Gelflings, even the producers get bored of them and go back to the Skeksis who are having their succession battle settled by a game of “Flog the Log.” The winner is the one who can demonstrate the best flogging without breaking costume.
Now back to this Luke who uses not the force, but a magic flute to discover the shard that will end the 
rule of The Dark Crystal (the eggplant/Christmas ornament). The flute comes in handy later when the movie opts for a mind-blowingly awful puppet recreation of the Star Wars cantina scene. Before that, however, oh goody, now another Gelfling shows up. Kira (Kathryn Mullen), I’m guessing, is a female Gelfling, but I’m not sure we will ever know. And the truth is this assumption shows my own latent gender bias – do I guess that the higher voice, pallid complexion, and likely eating disorder belong to a female of the species? How dare me!
This snorefest clocked in at 93 minutes, but should have ended far sooner. The Dark Crystal is exactly like “The Muppet Show” if you remove charm, humor, and familiarity … and pretty much any other redeeming quality. For groundbreaking puppetry, The Dark Crystal has nothing on the original Muppet Movie made three years earlier. Also, these puppets move with such lethargy, I’m pretty sure the whole lot of them could be dispatched easily by one enraged Miss Piggy. I’m so happy I missed this film in my youth. Now if only I’d missed it as an adult, too.
♪It’s time to remove makeup
It’s time to douse the light
It’s time to don pajamas for the puppet d’oh! tonight
It’s time to close your eyelids
You’ll want to shut them tight
No need to pay attention to the puppet d’oh! tonight♫
Rated PG, 93 Minutes
Director: Jim Henson, Frank Oz
Writer: David Odell
Genre: Fugly puppets — Fuppets
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Children small enough not to tell the difference between this and Star Wars
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The now-adult version of that child realizing what a horrible, horrible mistake he’s made
♪ Parody Inspired by “The Muppet Show Theme”
