THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE - Canceled!

[AndyDursin]

Great memories and info Andy, as always!

I remember THE DARK CRYSTAL having the problem of not entirely finding its audience. I do remember a segment of older viewers being disinterested by Henson's first non-Muppet venture and the film being too intense for younger kids. I think they all thought it was going to be a massive hit and Henson blamed Universal for poor marketing (he also blamed Universal for THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER's box-office disappointment as well).

Yet it still did well -- the gross would be $120 million adjusted for inflation, and 16th of all releases in 1982 is still respectable. It outgrossed CONAN, TRON, THE ROAD WARRIOR, FAST TIMES and loads of other familiar titles:

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/ch ... 982&p=.htm

Funny looking at that list is how much money SWORD AND THE SORCERER took in -- a film TOTALLY forgotten today...it's not even on Blu-Ray...and yet it made the same amount as CONAN THE BARBARIAN!

[Monterey Jack]

Funny looking at that list is how much money SWORD AND THE SORCERER took in -- a film TOTALLY forgotten today...it's not even on Blu-Ray...and yet it made the same amount as CONAN THE BARBARIAN!

Oh, it's endlessly fascinating to peruse box-office charts from the 80s, seeing all of these now-forgotten movies making more than ones that have been firmly entrenched in the pop-culture mythos based not on how much they made in theaters, but the aftermarket of endless cable viewings and VHS rentals. Carpenter's The Thing BOMBED and received scathing reviews in the summer of '82, and yet try to find a horror fan who doesn't place it high on their list of all-time favorite scary movies, from any decade. And yet, none of these fans rolled out for the (underrated) 2011 prequel, dismissing it sight-unseen in many cases.

[Monterey Jack]

Two episodes deep, and I'm REALLY liking it so far. It's visually splendid, the perfect mixture of old-school puppetry and modern CGI wizardry. I haven't settled into the characters yet, but with another seven or so hours(!) to go, I'm sure that will change. Only disappointment is -- surprise! -- the flavorless score by Daniel Pemberton, a talented composer capable of better.

[Paul MacLean]

Only disappointment is -- surprise! -- the flavorless score by Daniel Pemberton, a talented composer capable of better.

Someone on the FSM board is all over Pemberton's score, stating that he always found Trevor Jones' main theme "ugly", and praises the new series' "more pleasing melodic lines" and its "wonderful orchestrations".

[AndyDursin]

Lol

We watched the first episode. Hope not every one of these suffers from the usual Netflix syndrome of unnecessarily padded running times. Felt a little long though visually very impressive.

[Monterey Jack]

Lol

We watched the first episode. Hope not every one of these suffers from the usual Netflix syndrome of unnecessarily padded running times. Felt a little long though visually very impressive.

The rest of the eps hover around 48 minutes long, meaning padded, but not extraneously so (several episodes of season two of MIndhunter were an hour or longer, which was ridiculous).

I'm five episodes in, and it's really humming along for me. The voice actress playing Aughra is a DEAD-ON match for Billie Whitlaw.

[AndyDursin]

I certainly respect the effort, and I'll definitely finish it. I just don't know how necessary it is to be telling this story thus far. If it's going to be 10 hours of the Skeksis torturing other creatures -- I mean, we all know where it's going pretty much -- then it's not going to resonate with me very much, no matter how pretty it looks.

[Monterey Jack]

Finished up today, and LOVED it. Beautiful, well-written and ably performed by both the puppeteers and voice cast (none of which stick out as distracting "celebrity" stunt-casting). I'll have to watch the making-of special tomorrow.

The score, sadly, didn't grow on me. It's "stately" yet lacking any discernable melody the way Trevor Jones' superlative effort did, much like Ramen Noodles' overpraised Game Of Thrones music. And it doesn't help that it NEVER. STOPS.

[Paul MacLean]

I'm four episodes in, and I really like it -- but I admit it does feel padded at times. Deet is cute, and a likable character -- but she seems a bit superfluous when we have Brea. But overall I like how it is unfolding, and so far it seems to be keeping faith with the background / history as told in "The World of the Dark Crystal" book.

Agreed though, the score is lame. It doesn't ruin the series, but it doesn't really have any imagination, or provide any emotional highs and lows. Daniel Pemberton is clearly a keyboard noodler, with little apparent musical or dramatic inclination.

Apart from the fact The Dark Crystal is one of the best scores ever written, the "Trevor Jones style" is what this series really needed.

[AndyDursin]

Yeah it's just not doing it for me. The original movie was 90 minutes -- getting through 10 hours of this...it's just not my bag.

While visually impressive, the tone is also denser, the action a little bit more sadistic -- it's not exactly R-rated, but it definitely carries a harder edge than Henson. Leterrier tends to dwell on the oddness (snot, food dropping out of mouths, etc.) and it gives off a different feel that I don't quite care for. But, my main problem, is I find the story slow-going and, so far, mostly predictable. I know the beats it's going to hit pretty much, I can sense where it's going -- and long stretches of episodes I find completely tedious. Nearly every scene feels like it could've been cut in half. And the whole "multiple kingdom" thing feels like a concession to the GAME OF THRONES/LORD OF THE RINGS audience.

I will finish it at some point, but it's definitely not a show I want to binge, and so far, I find it pretty much overpraised in spite of the measurable technical accomplishment.

[Paul MacLean]

I just finished it...

SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS  SPOILERS

I thought it was very impressive in a lot of ways, but I found it unsatisfying -- particularly the ending -- so I have to give it a thumbs down.

I thought it had some terrific characters, and it was frequently gorgeous to behold. It was great that they relied primarily on puppetry to bring the characters to life, I thought it had moments that were touching and inspiring -- but it to tried to stuff too many elements into a single narrative. Even for ten episodes, there were too many sub-plots, too many tangents, and too many "strange creatures" -- all of which contributed to a convoluted narrative and just plain overkill. The rock creature was kind of neat, but we had giant spiders, strange little walking plants that take over people's minds, giant caterpillar-like things, a talking tree, etc. They just slowed things down. And while the filmmakers perfectly captured the tone and character (and look) of the Skeksis from the original film, the Skeksis had too much screen time. Jim Henson wisely kept the their appearances in the original film to a minimum -- as their carping and conniving and gravelly voices can get quickly tedious -- as is repeatedly proven in this series.

And I agree Andy, the "multiple kingdom" plotlines were too "Game of Thrones" and gave the series a soap opera quality. There was a bit too much "shakeycam" as well.

The segment with the friendly Skeksis who lives peacably with his mystic "half" was a really interesting idea -- but played too much for laughs (none of which were funny), plus the way the Skeksis explains where he and the mystics came from -- by using a puppet show (!) -- was extremely tedious. Some things made no sense -- the Chamberlain murders the General, yet the general is a character in The Dark Crystal. A few scenes were in bad taste -- such the Gourmand urinating in the castle corridor.

I was waiting to be shown who the parents of Jen and Kira were, how and why the emperor became ill (leading to his demise in the original film), waiting to see the tribe of mystics (not just two of them), and waiting for the garthim to appear (which they eventually do -- in the last fifteen seconds).

I was hoping for a resolution that set-up the story of the original film, but the end of the last episode suggests Netflix is -- groan -- planning a followup series.

The score was very weak too, as it was wall-to-wall, had no emotional highs or lows, was not too loud, not too soft, not too melodic -- and not too interesting. In fact I'd say it actually harmed the production, as it failed to compliment the drama and action, and was mostly just irritating white sound. (The main theme is also distractingly similar to the Tears For Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" from the 80s.)

So, there were a lot of things I liked about Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance but ultimately it just didn't work for me.

I'm finding, in the wake of things like Alien Covenant, the recent Star Wars movies, Fantastic Beasts, Blade Runner 2049 and now this series, it's very difficult to recapture the "magic" of the original (and probably best not to try).

[AndyDursin]

Great analysis Paul. I've thrown in the towel. I got through the mid-point of Episode 3 and I'm going to scan through the rest, if I'm even motivated enough to do it. I also wonder how many of the critics gushing about it actually watched all 10 episodes, and didn't just review the pilot. The bloated nature of the episodes, boring subplots that seem designed only to prolong the running time -- legitimate gripes that most of the reviews don't even mention, which is why I wonder (as often happens with these streaming series) that the critics only watched the first hour or two.

One other thing that's worth mentioning: Henson was widely criticized for the Gelfings' "blandness" in THE DARK CRYSTAL, which is why he moved on to human protagonists in LABYRINTH.

For all the hemming and hawing we do about the lack of "expressionism" in CGI characters at times (like Zemeckis' mo-cap on "Polar Express" etc.), let's be honest: there is a limit too to the amount of movement in some of these muppets also. Some of them are well articulated, but, for example, the Rian character is basically immobile. He basically has one "dead on" expression and that's it...







Much like the zombies in Zemeckis' CG stuff, I find there are limits to how much emotion can be generated by a Muppet like Rian who doesn't project anything other than one flat appearance. Thus, the same criticism that applied to the 1982 movie can be leveled here also -- if not more so, since this is 10 hours and not 90 minutes!

Maybe if this whole thing was edited tighter and pared down into, say, a couple of 90-minute features it would've been more palatable, but as an "episodic hour-long series" it doesn't work for me.

[Paul MacLean]

Some of them are well articulated, but, for example, the Rian character is basically immobile. He basically has one "dead on" expression and that's it...

I actually thought Rian and Brea were the best-looking gelfling puppets -- it seems to me that most of the care went into their design; the faces of most of the other gelfings were more "toy-like", with less-detailed features.

I can overlook the lacking articulation, since this was, after-all, a "puppet show", but their characters were not served by the overall execution. One of the things that made the original Dark Crystal work so well was how all the other elements -- camerawork, editing, the score -- all made the puppets more believable. They just didn't have that same level of support here.

Maybe if this whole thing was edited tighter and pared down into, say, a couple of 90-minute features it would've been more palatable, but as an "episodic hour-long series" it doesn't work for me.

I think a lot of cutting (and rescoring) would help the production overall -- but you'd have to change the ending for it to really work.

[AndyDursin]

Going to watch this on Netflix instead!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/spy-1237183

[Paul MacLean]

Going to watch this on Netflix instead!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/spy-1237183

I think I'll check that out too!