The Dark Crystyl

A puppet movie from Henson that isn't muppets? Is that possible?

Jen is picked to be The One who must fulfil The Prophecy, and is given the first step... fortunately he happens to lucky bump into someone who takes him to where the rest of The Prophecy is so they can find out what he's supposed to do. In the meantime the Skeksis are having an eating scene to show off different puppet effects. And then the Pod People have an eating scene to show off different puppet effects. Jan and Kira get to the castle and barely manage to save the day and have quite an emotional moment where they are surround by big cosmic events but who cares because Kira is near death! More emotional impact that most other movies out there! Woo!

One thing I happened to notice was how big the place isn't. Jen is told to go to Aughra's place, which is one day away. At the same time, the Chamberlain Skeksis follows the Garthim and turns up at her place at the same time... so the Skeksis castle is only one day away from Aughra's place. Everywhere is like two days walk from everywhere else! Makes a change from the epic distances we are supposed to believe are crossed in typical fantasy stories.

And the puppets are decent too... more or less. Whenever there was movement of the puppets in a long shot I had a hard time buying it. And I'm including when they had an actor dressed up as Jen move about. Shame as everything else about them is fine. Nice sets too.

Decent movie in many ways, just a few flaws to take me out of it.

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