Available for buy or to hire on digital starting February sixth is the Jim Henson and Frank Oz directed traditional ‘The Dark Crystal,’ which was a departure from their work with The Muppets and featured groundbreaking animatronics.
Moviefone just lately had the pleasure of talking with the daughter of Jim Henson and CEO of the Jim Henson Company, Lisa Henson in regards to the digital re-release of ‘The Dark Crystal.’ She mentioned the event of the venture, why her father wished to direct one thing darker and fantasy-driven, the film’s advances in animatronics, the recognition of the film, the way forward for the franchise and the legacy of Jim Henson.
Related Article: Brian Henson Talks ‘Labyrinth’ Digital Re-Release and Playing Hoggle
Moviefone: To start with, are you able to speak in regards to the growth of this film and why your father wished to do one thing darker and extra fantasy-driven after the success of ‘The Muppet Show’ and ‘The Muppet Movie’?
Lisa Henson: He was not anticipated to take this sort of flip. He was so profitable with ‘The Muppet Show,’ and surprisingly, he himself determined to cease making ‘The Muppet Show’ and finish it after 5 seasons. That was uncommon on the time, but it surely was very indicative of his character as a result of he was stressed. Even on the top of ‘Sesame Street,’ the Muppets stayed on ‘Sesame Street,’ however he himself determined he wished to do a special type of a present, a range present with the Muppets. Similarly, when the Muppets had been on the very top of their success, he was pondering that he wished to do one thing else. He did not use the phrase immersive, however extra immersive, the place the entire world is delivered to life. He met Brian Froud after seeing a few of his paintings. Really, that partnership and that friendship kicked off the entire growth of ‘The Dark Crystal’ as a result of Brian was making creatures that my father knew could possibly be constructed, however that they had by no means been constructed earlier than. He checked out these stunning troll drawings that Brian did, and he had a variety of revealed work. I feel that my father and the puppet builders knew that these issues could possibly be constructed with the strategies that they had been beginning to work on. He was experimenting as nicely with barely completely different textures with the ‘Saturday Night Live’ puppets, with different types of lifelike eyeballs. Instead of all the pieces being a fluffy, furry character, these had different types of sculpted and molded texture. So, a variety of it was technical. He all the time wished to unravel a brand new technical problem, however he was additionally very interested by an even bigger fantasy world and was very interested in the artwork of Arthur Rackham and different British illustrators who made a complete world of creatures. His dream venture actually was ‘Dark Crystal,’ and he was allowed large freedom within the growth. So, you requested in regards to the growth. The financier on ‘The Muppet Show’ gave him nearly a clean examine to do no matter he wished for this fantasy movie. He was capable of have individuals drawing, sculpting, and arising with new strategies. It’s just like the world was developed even earlier than the story was, and the script, which David Odell wrote was actually coming in to focus later. So, this was a film that was a traditional world constructing train.
MF: Can you speak in regards to the groundbreaking animatronics that your father helped create for this venture?
LH: If you place your self again to pre-CGI, pre-everything, that they had no pc help to depend on both visually and even by way of driving the mechanics. The contemporaneous puppetry is Yoda (from ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and E.T. (‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’), which in every case, was one character. The Henson Company was constructing a whole world with a whole lot (of puppets). So that was type of the dimensions of what they had been making an attempt to do, which was additionally amazingly bold. So, a number of the similar issues that had been being solved with Yoda and with E.T., whether or not it was eye blinking or fingers, all this stuff had been mechanical and engineering challenges. Even the froth that one thing would possibly turn out to be, the pores and skin was a problem, and all the pieces was an engineering problem. Then ‘Dark Crystal’ doubled, tripled, and quadrupled the problem by the array of characters that they wished to placed on display screen.
MF: The movie was not well-received on the time of its launch however has gone on to turn out to be a contemporary traditional. Can you speak in regards to the legacy of the film, and did your father stay lengthy sufficient to see the film turn out to be beloved by followers? If he was right here now, what would he take into consideration the truth that we’re nonetheless speaking about ‘The Dark Crystal’ nearly 40 years later?
LH: I feel it makes me marvel what it will’ve been like for him to stay and see that each motion pictures, each ‘The Dark Crystal’ and Labyrinth have turn out to be enduring classics which might be extraordinarily appreciated for the artistry and the innovation that went into them. At the time, ‘Dark Crystal,’ critically was sophisticated. It was revered on a sure degree, however individuals felt a bit betrayed. “Why are the people who did ‘The Muppets’ doing something that’s a little scary?” But at the same time, there were people who appreciated it, and it did perform well internationally, and maybe even a little better in America than people feared. So, ‘The Dark Crystal’ performed well enough that he was able to get the financing with George Lucas’s help for ‘Labyrinth.’ Then ‘Labyrinth’ is the one that performed badly. So, they were not both failures, but the ‘Dark Crystal’ while it performed well was a little bit critically complicated because it was just so different from what people expected from him coming off ‘The Muppet Show’ and ‘The Muppet Movie’.
MF: The franchise recently expanded with Netflix’s prequel series, ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,’ are their plans for more live action ‘Dark Crystal’ in the future?
LH: We are always doing ‘Dark Crystal’ stuff. One of the things we have done between productions is publications and graphic novels. So, we develop storylines for the world of Thra, which if you didn’t know, it is the name of the planet in ‘Dark Crystal.’ So, we are always opening that world up with books and graphic novels in between productions.
MF: Finally, can you talk about your father’s legacy and the work of the Jim Henson Company that continues to this day?
LH: We have a lot of fun managing the legacy, and whether it’s making a brand new ‘Fraggle Rock’ show for Apple or making ‘The Dark Crystal’ prequel series, ‘Age of Resistance’ for Netflix, which was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. To be able to bring that world to life again, I never thought we would do it. With ‘Fraggle Rock’ as well, those shows were so beautiful and so complicated that being offered by today’s streamers the chance to go back and revisit and do puppet spectaculars again, it’s been wonderful and rewarding.
“Another World Another Time In the Age of Wonder”
71
1 hr 33 minDec 17th, 1982
Showtimes & Tickets
What is the Plot of ‘The Dark Crystal?’
On another planet in the distant past a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world before the grotesque race of Skeksis find and use the crystal for evil.
Who is in the Cast of ‘The Dark Crystal’?
Other Jim Henson Company Movies:
Buy Jim Henson Movies on Amazon
Source: www.moviefone.com