The Dark Crystal 1982 - Jim Henson's Legacy Deep Dive - Movie Review with Spoilers 

I was 9 at the time but this flick never triggered my imagination.....there were so many great movies in 1982.....

Now this is the stuff, so happy to see you back as an encyclopedist, bringing so much detail but also so much enthusiasm. Even now I can recall various reactions to this when it came out, such as -- Fizzgig: "How can an animal be all mouth!?" I recall the designers of Aughra calling her so deeply ugly that she becomes weirdly beautiful. I have long thought that people designing alien ecosystems for even the most serious science fiction projects owe it to themselves to sit for one moment and witness so much of the liveliness of Thra. (I even appreciate the name Thra, which strikes me very much as "Earth" backwards.) Nowadays I think there might be a groan of "Oh no, not the Captain Marvel feminism again" when Jen remarks "You have wings!" and Kira replies "Of course, I'm a girl," but back when this came out it felt gentler, like there was a playful kidding behind a line like that. I don't know if anyone remembers, but one of my favorite Muppets was perhaps the earliest one, a wide-mouthed floppy-eared dog named Rowlf, I think he turned up on the very first Sesame Street episodes but may even have made an earlier appearance on something called The Jimmy Dean Show (yes, Jimmy Dean as in sausages). Thanks, RNG, and just give us fsair warning for when you ever want to have a discussion of drive-ins. Excelsior!

My favorite line in the film - "But I don't have wings"... "Of course not! You're a boy."

The amount of work that went into the making of this film is staggering. It got lost in the shuffle in 1982 with all the genre films released that year.

Great as usual!! The Chamberlain was voices by Pilate himself, the late great Barry Dennen(you might also now him as Claude Lamont in The Kentucky Fried Movie). In the age the Chamberlain was voiced by Simon Pegg who does a great job cathing¨the essence¨of Skeksil. The scientist was played and voiced by Kermit the Frog Steve Whitmire who voiced Kermit after the passing of Jim Henson. I would love to see this on the big screen though!!

Great to see another video from you. You deep dives and breakdowns are always fantastic.

Saw a double feature of this and Labrynth in theaters a couple years ago. An awesome experience!

So that's how Brian Froud got a Job on Labyrinth(1986), Brian's son Toby Froud was Toby the little Baby That Sarah Played by Jennifer Connelly must Rescue From David Bowie's Jareth AKA The Goblin King. Toby Froud Grew up to work for Weta Workshop, the same Company that did the SFX for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005). He was also a Sculptor of The Box Trolls. But Back to The Dark Crystal. Jim got the Walking movements by Standing directly under Jen The Gelfling Male Protagonist of the Film, and walking with Jen over his head. Yeah the two halves of the Same whole was an awesome part of the Story and we see throughout the film The emperor Dies, and so does the Eldest Mystic, Chamberlain was injured in the Hand by Jen, and so was his Counterpart, The Scientist falls to his death in The Volcano, and his Counterpart Melts out of Existence. The Prophecy:" When single Shines the Triple Sun, What was sundered and undone, Shall Be Whole and The two Made one, By Gelfing hand or else by none." Which means what you said. Frank Oz was The Chamberlain and Aughra, And the Chamberlain is an awesome Character. Well Yoda and Aughra were both Frank Oz.

I love this movie, and Age of Resistance too! It's heartbreaking that we may never get a home video release of AoR, but we're lucky to have it at all.

You released this yesterday and there are only 5 views??? Criminal!

This is a Brilliant and Comprehensive Analysis of the World- Bravo. Saw this in theaters as a young artist and was in tears, for real. I’d never seen such extensive World Building on film before this. Only Animation had even come close to this Masterwork of Henson’s Art-form- The Muppet. Thanks for sharing 🙏 Godspeed Retro Nerd Girl

I loved the part where you imitated the Chamberlain's voice. 😂 Sometimes I do that around the house and for some reason it scares my cats!

Great review, RNG. Dark Crystal is one of those movies I saw as a young man that didn't really catch my imagination at the time, but that I really should revisit. The thing that amazed me then and now is the incredible world building. In particular, of course, the amazing Henson puppetry that goes way beyond puppetry-- just the idea of creating fully functional alien beings with multiple performers, puppeteers, and even remote control animatronics is mind boggling. Unfortunately, the approach has been made mostly obsolete by CGI, but I'd love to see somebody out there preserve and advance the art (the way some do with old-school stop motion). I also didn't know that there were books that expand on the Dark Crystal world. This is pretty fascinating, as it seems to have as much potential as Tolkien's universe. But right now I have to check out all this new merch! 😀

Awesome I'm watching this at 1 am

That memorial is on youtube and it is heartbreaking. Like/subscribed.

This is a great video. However, there are a couple points that might be slightly off. 1)The original title was simply called "The Crystal" in the original manuscript. If at any point it was called The Dark Crystalis, maybe that happened in between the other two. 2)Breaking the shard from the crystal was not what split the Urskeks in half. The Great Conjunction did that while they were using the crystal. One of the Skekses broke the crystal in a fit of rage which prevented them reconnecting with the UrRu since the crystal was now incomplete. This is one of the best reviews of this movie I've seen so keep up the good work.

My older brother LOVED this movie when we were kids and I watched it with him often. It’s creepy but also weirdly cute 😂

I love the Dark Crystal, i had it on VHS as a kid and only just last yr bought it again on DvD, it's such a magical movie and has this unique feel. I tried to show my sister's kids this classic movie and they couldn't get into it, the one said she found the characters look and way they moved too realistic and creepy LOL. Kids today are just too used to all this CGI animated movies but they're all too bland and just not like these classics, timeless stories. the practical-puppetry effects of Dark Crystal are simply amazing and they hold up well even today. there's a grittiness and the lighting especially gives it a nice realism, have you noticed fantasy movies and just all these pixar junk they churn out yr after yr are all way too colorful and very clean in the picture quality, too bright and perfect looking i think. I gotta admit i always found Augraha scary as a kid because while she looked like a puppet she moved too realistic like a person. It's that unique combination human performance and puppetry. It's such a shame the Dark Crystal prequel series on Netflix got cancelled because of not enough viewers; that is one of the rare "modern continuations" that was 100% Faithful to this original classic, while telling a whole new story, and introducing so many new characters and world-building. this era is truly crap, it's dull AF, there's no Originality or Real Creativity today. Everything is just "animated" digitally and stories today are not unique, innocent and timeless, they're just all mostly full of messaging and identity politics.

love ur retelling of the story, RNG. Did you know there was a fashion line inspired by the film?? =D

Thank you for these shorter videos. I can't watch the longer watch-alongs live or later on. I wish Amazon would release the tv show on blu-ray. :(

This is one of my favorite movies as a kid! I love it! Happy I found you and made it here. New Subbie! ♥

This film is very underrated!

Request: There are so many films which have been forgotten over time. Please, Review the horror film Mr. Frost with Jeff Goldblum, the sci-fi films Scanner Cop 1 and Split Second with Rutger Hauer, the John Candy comedies Only the Lonely and Summer Rental along with The Resurrected horror movie with Chris Sarandon. Thank you!!!!

RNG, you are an AMAZING movie reviewer. ❤😘🙋🏽‍♀️

I don't know if you've seen it but have you seen the Netflix series, it's well worth a watch and it was a shame it got cancelled after one season and it's made by the Jim Henson company the same people who made the movie

i love this film so so so so much

Hi