So it isn’t a book. I know. I have, in my few years upon this Earth figured out the difference between a movie and a book, but having recently watched this film again on Netflix, I really wanted to celebrate some of the things that I think the story and the production achieved well.
I won’t go into how it’s a flawed masterpiece or how it seems dumbed down – My personal feelings are that too many judge this children’s movie as a film for adults and that the studio itself interfered to make the ‘plot’ clear to all (this is actually true! The Skekses weren’t even supposed to use Human language in the original cut). But I will find five amazing things that I loved about this narrative.
5 – Special effects by Jim Henson & George Lucas’ special effect team
While ‘Special Effects’ might be a bit far fetched, the scenes that were painted were done by the same people who did Star Wars and are amazing – some of the best on film prior to CGI. Better even than some of the CGI scenes that would come after. And the locations within the film’s story are all sets, they aren’t ‘on location’ filmed. This gives the setting a feeling of ‘the other’ that Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit both failed to do. While this is pretty important in a visual medium as a writer it isn’t my major worry so I’m relegating this to 5th place.
4 – Aughra
Aughra takes the part of the Mentor an guide from the Hero’s Journey, the theory of the monomyth which Dark Crystal almost perfectly fits. This role is traditionally given to males in all the fantasy and Sci-Fi I can think of on the spur of the moment – Ogion is Ged’s mentor from the Wizard of Earthsea, Brom in Eragon (and then Oromis), Gandalf in the Hobbit, Rothern (and the Akkarin) in Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician Trilogy, e.t.c.
Why does this matter to me? Well, being the father of a daughter who sees me read and who shares and emulates the same value in reading I do, I want her to find relatable characters in whatever fiction media she consumes. Aughra is. She’s everyone’s mad grandmother (my daughter has two of those!) or crazy Aunt (A.V!).
3 – Kira is actually the real hero
When we think of a hero in fantasy fiction, they are rarely passive. Even in the events of Harry Potter, the titular character makes choices and has an impact on the story. In Dark Crystal, Jem is just a vehicle for the audience to understand the central conflict. It is his companion, Kira, who is the real hero. Jem has no skills other than throwing, catching and following orders. Kira can talk to plants, has a sidekick and makes plans to see the prophecy come to fruition. In the end of the film (SPOILER – but I mean, if you haven’t seen it, its your own fault. The film is 38 years old soon) she even makes a heroic sacrifice, paying her own life in return for healing the dark crystal.
2 – Fear
Right from the beginning of the film, the Dark Crystal is scary. It opens up with a shot of the bad guys and then things just get more and more ‘Other’ from there on in. The protagonists don’t even look human, so the whole film has an alien feel that makes it quite disarming to an adult, but chilling as a child. This was the stuff of nightmares, in places. The Garthim, for example, the giant insectoid warriors, remind me to this day of a dense surge of cockroaches I got far to close to once in India.
1 – The Skeksis
I love, love, love the Skeksis. How many tropes form fantasy do they fulfil? An Evil Emperor (two actually), trail by sword, political infighting, commanders of an army of drones, mass-murderers, sucking the life-force from others to imbibe and extend their own lives! They are some of the best bad guys in any film – in any story – that I have found. Their motivations, as bad guys in a children’s fictional working, are uncomplicated: they want to live forever.
So what does this mean for my writing?
Dark Crystal. There won’t be anything like it again. Even with the sequel coming out on Netflix supposedly. It won’t be the same because now storytelling is different – expectations of children’s film and literature are different.
My main take-away from the film is that Henson wanted to treat children like adults, that he respected them enough to make a scenes not immediately understandable when he didn’t give the Skeksis language in the first cut. He trusted them enough to frighten them. In short, he had an understanding of his target audience.
My target audience changes a lot during my writing process. Sometimes I’m writing to impress a Writing Group, or sometimes I’m writing to have something to read to my daughter in years to come. Sometimes I’m writing for friends or family who will never read what I’ve written. But I should be more like Jim Henson.
I should aim to write for myself.
Imagine Erratically 