The Dark Crystal Prequel Series Coming To Netflix

From what I recall, the Skeksis acted benevolent for many, many years. Hosting games, holding concerts, banquets,....basically anything that was fun. It was only later, as they started to decay and age, did the more wicked side of the Skeksis come out. Than they started to try to find ways to retain their youth or at least not age more.

The Skeksis were, supposedly quite pretty early on...when all four of their arms worked, and they decorated themselves more like birds with colorful clothing and plumage.

Its possible that the cracked crystal remained mostly white for a long time, but darkened into the purple form we know it as the Skeksis evil (or perhaps just their desperation to live forever) grew.

 

Finished the first episode. Ripley doesn't mention the crystal shattering in the narration at the beginning. Must be something this is revealed later on. I was hoping the show would start there since I want to know the events that caused it to be fractured and cause the split in the Guardians.

 

That's what I get for living on the Atlantic Coast...

 

Spoiler: Episode 7

We get answers and clarification on the history of...everything.

However, it doesn't explain why Aughra says she left the Crystal with Skeksis and not the urSkek.

It also means that prologue was deliberately misleading which is unfortunate.

 

Well, not the lore in World of the Dark Crystal, as far as I can remember everything we've seen in the show is consistent with what was established in Creation Myths. I haven't read the novels yet, but they say on the covers that they tie into Age of Reisistance, so I'm assuming they're consistent with it too.
It looks like they might not be following World of The Dark Crystal any more, it's not mentioned at all on the official website, and that is the main home for all of the current lore.

That's covered in the Creation Myths graphic novel trilogy, which is outstanding and highly recommended to anyone who wants to know more of the history and is willing to read comics.

 

I finished the season today. This series is gobsmackingly gorgeous, an incredible technological and artistic achievement unlike any other, a masterpiece through and through. Jim Henson would be very proud to see his vision come to fruition.

Without going into details, I really enjoyed how everyone's individual stories concluded, while leaving the door opening for further stories and leading towards to the ultimate tragedy. Suffice to say, I certainly hope Netflix renews the show for a second season!

 

Only one episode in so far. It's quite well-made, though I wish there weren't quite so much CGI. It looked like the Landstriders were done with CGI, which is disappointing, since part of what I love about them in the original movie is what an impressive physical achievement it was for the acrobats inside the costumes. On the other hand, the puppet/creature effects are a step beyond the original film in a number of ways, particularly how much more detailed and expressive the Gelflings' faces are compared to the original. Although it's odd that, at least in episode 1, they haven't continued the movie's practice of using human doubles for the Gelflings and Aughra in walking/running/climbing shots. (Jen's "stunt double" Kiran Shah is still active in the industry, playing various diminutive creatures in Star Wars and Doctor Who and the like, so it would've been cool if they'd used him as a double here too.)

It's a nice touch that in the series, as in the movie, the very first vocalization we hear aside from the opening narration is the Chamberlain's whimper. Simon Pegg does an extraordinarily dead-on impression of Barry Dennen's Chamberlain at first, though at the end of episode 1 he takes it in a deeper, more gravelly direction in his big evil monologue. It's also a bit of a retcon that now the Chamberlain's the only one who speaks broken English. In the film, all the Skekses had kind of a broken speech pattern, because so much of their dialogue was originally in a made-up language and the replacement dialogue had to fit the rhythms.

I didn't think it was that Joker-like; rather, Hamill was doing his best to approximate Steve Whitmire's original performance as the Scientist, but his voice doesn't go that high, and the rest is just basically the natural rhythms and intonations of Mark Hamill's voice. I guess I'm used to hearing them in the numerous other animation roles he's played, like the Hobgoblin in the '90s Spider-Man.

Sigourney Weaver is credited as "The Myth-Speaker," which suggests she's merely someone telling a story that was written long before or passed down to her orally through the generations.

I liked the bit that the "wheels" on the Skeksis carriage were pillbug-like rolling animals. The original film established rolling locomotion as a recurring theme in the creatures of Thra, used both by Fizzgig and by the little bug things crawling around the castle (whose name escapes me). So it was clever to build on that and postulate a larger rolling creature that had been harnessed as living wheels.

 

Hamill’s performance actually reminds me more of the acolyte master of the Knights Templar in Knightfall.

 

So do they resolve this later on? I must admit it was a 'wtf' moment so early on in their 1st episode.

 

Yes and no.

Spoiler: Episode 7

There's a puppet show that delves into the history of Thra, the urSkeks, the Skeksis, and the Mystics, but the explanation leaves two questions: 1) Why is the prologue deliberately misleading and 2) why does Aughra say she left the Crystal with Skeksis and not the urSkek (unless somehow her memory as effected in somehow but nowhere in season 1 even hints at that)..

I'm pretty certain the Landstriders are puppets considering director Louis Leterrier saying multiple times that he wanted to use puppetry as much as possible and that he would only use CGI to enhance to the production (not unlike Peter Jackson's methodology for The Lord of the Rings).

True, but as I said before, there was no indication of that after the prologue was completed, she never refered to herself as "The Myth-Speaker," and we never saw such a character. If any of those things actually happened, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but the prologue was presented as omniscient without any indication that we shouldn't trust what she told us.

 

I think they might have been both, in the first episode there were some close up shots where they appeared to be puppets, but the far shots of them running next to the Skesis carriage were CGI. But everything in those shots appeared to be CGI, so I don't really think it's fair to single out the Landstriders there.

 

Well, when I watched it, I noticed the discrepancy from what we knew in the movie, and my first thought was "Well, it sounds like someone telling a story, so maybe they don't know the whole truth." I didn't get any special impression that the narrator was omniscient.

Yes, that's what I was referring to. I'm up to episode 3 now, and there have been a number of shots of them standing still where they're clearly physical, but I'm still not sure that's the case in the full-length running shots. Also, they have done some shots with human stand-ins for the Gelflings, e.g. when entering the Crystal chamber or running through the castle corridors.

Also, does anyone know for sure whether they rebuilt Aughra's orrery? It seems to move more quickly here and without as much weight and wobble as the original, so it feels like a CGI recreation to me.


Anyway, all that aside, I'm enjoying the storytelling and the complex character work, though I could do without the grossout humor. The Gelflings' faces are amazing -- so many different, unique facial structures and so much fine, subtle expression.

I'm not sure I like the idea of "Fizzgig" being the generic name for Fizzgig's species. That means that Kira basically named her dog "Dog."

 

Anybody watched the behind the scenes documentary yet? I was going to watch it after we watched the first episode, but decided to wait until after the whole season, just in case there are spoilers in it.

 

Ooh, I didn't know about the documentary, thanks. It's in my queue now. It's an hour and 22 minutes -- even longer than the PBS making-of special for the original film! I love that. I'm so sick of "behind-the-scenes bonus features" that turn out to be just 3 minutes of cast interviews and a few clips of the movie/show. I miss the really in-depth BTS specials we got back in the day.

 

My impression is based on the fact that we never saw the narrator telling the story to anyone, the fact that we never saw the so-called (by only the credits) Myth-Speaker later on (which would allow us to fill in the blanks), and the fact that we get a visual representation of that story, complete with accurate depictions of the characters it talks about.

I don't see the problem with the faraway shots being CGI if for no other reason than practicability. As long as the intimate moments and the majority of the overall shots are puppetry, I'm happy.

Maybe but it felt like a very accurate recreation either way. It definitely wasn't a dingy as the film's version, but that makes sense considering the time difference.

Oh, damn, I didn't even realize there was a documentary. I looked for special features in the extras (or whatever it's called) section with the trailers but didn't see anything. I didn't think to look for a separate documentary. I'll have to watch that tomorrow.

 

Ever seen Rashomon, or any of its countless imitators? Seeing the narrator's account depicted doesn't prove it's objectively accurate. It just means it's the version of the story being presented to you in a visual medium at that moment.

Bottom line, if I see an inconsistency, my first reaction is to find a way to reconcile it -- not to cling to an interpretation that makes it impossible to reconcile. So I don't see any reason to insist on the narrator's hypothetical omniscience.

As I said, what was cool about the original Landstriders was the impressive physical achievement of the acrobats actually locomoting that way (although I think they were supported by wires so they didn't lose their balance). So that's the part I'd be most disappointed to see replaced with CGI.

Not the point. The original was an amazingly impressive physical construct, an actual Really Big Thing that actually did move exactly as shown. If they just recreated it with ones and zeros, that's not as impressive. (Though probably less dangerous.)

And there are different degrees of accuracy. If something looks exactly like the real thing but moves like a weightless, frictionless digital construct, that's not entirely accurate and the difference can be sensed, if only subliminally.

 

Just got done and holy crap, was that so much better than the movie!

I think I mentioned this up-thread, but part of what always kept me from being a fan of the original movie is mostly because while I liked the imaginative world, the plot and characters felt two dimensional. Plus the whole things seems to be over just as it starts to get interesting.

With the show, the characters are all fully realised with depth, dimension and actual character arcs for all of the three primary protagonists. They even give the Skeksis a certain amount of depth and nuance!
I suppose the only downside to this is that now the movie seems like an anticlimactic epilogue to the true epic saga. I wonder if they show goes on long enough to the point where they catch up, that they'll just go ahead and remake and expand upon the movie as a final 10 hour season unto itself?

 

On the 8th episode. Really enjoying it so far. Looking forward in to seeing how they all die- I mean, how they end the season.
I looked at those comics I didn’t realise they made a sequel to the movie. Are the comics canon to the overall narrative or their own thing?