A Retrospective Look At 'The Dark Crystal'

TV & Film

Oct 17

The Dark Crystal was expensive to make, marketed to the wrong demographic and crashed and burned at the box office, but years later, it is considered one of the greatest spectacles in filmmaking. Proof that a box office failure can have a silver lining.

The Conception

Believe it or not, The Dark Crystal was born at Kennedy Airport while Jim Henson was snowed in. He wrote the twenty-page outline, originally titled ‘The Crystal’ in 1978. Henson was a busy guy by this point, his television show The Muppets was about to begin its third season, and Sesame Street was on its ninth. But he had been itching for something darker, with an edge after years of kid’s entertainment.

After the puppeteer caught sight of a Brian Froud illustration on the cover of a 1960s book (Once Upon a Time), Henson came up with an idea for a Grim fairytale with the same look. A 1975 copy of CS Lewis’ The Pig Tales, illustrated by Leonard B. Lubin, was the other inspiration for the project, but Henson nailed down Froud, and he came onto the production team as a conceptual designer.

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The Dark Crystal concept art — Brian Froud Illustration
Image Source: The PorPorBooks Blog

Realising what a big undertaking this would be, Jim Henson formed Henson’s Creature Shop in 1979, and filming for The Dark Crystal began two years later in April of 1981. Despite the complex shoot, it was wrapped by September for a 1982 release. The script went through a few changes; a language was developed for the Skeksis, but test groups found the subtitles too distracting. The iconic voice performances that made them so villainous, in particular Chamberlain’s whine, nearly never were. The Mystics went through several name changes, including the Bada and the Ooo-urrrs. Jen was also almost blue.

Cast And Crew

There isn’t a great deal of dialogue in David Odell’s script, and some of it is a little clunky. There’s no doubt that in places, it’s saved by the immense vocal talent that they persuaded to sign onto the project. It helped that Henson played lead Jen,

The Dark Crystal BTS — Image Source: The Dark Crystal

Kira was voiced by Kathryn Mullen, known as Mokey from Fraggle Rock and Gaffer from The Muppets. But she wasn’t the only performer Henson called in from that show. Dave Goelz, aka Gonzo, played Fizz Gigg, and Steve Whitmire (Rizzo The Rat) came on board for The Scientist Skeksis.

Co-director Frank Oz originally voiced Aughra, but Henson wanted to make her female, so Billie Whitelaw (Hot Fuzz, The Omen) did the final cut.

The one actor who wasn’t an ex-muppet was the late, great Barry Denning, who voiced Chamberlain. Denning was in the maligned Superman III but thrived in the video game industry. He’s worked on some of the biggest titles out there: Metal Gear Solid 2, Dragon Age Origins, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Fall Out: New Vegas, Diablo III, and Dota 2, to name but a few.

One of the key aspects that made The Dark Crystal so creepy was the sound. From the clipping claws of the Garthim to the rumbling of the ground as the observatory falls to pieces. Ben Burtt was the man responsible for the sounds of Star Wars, and Campbell Askew went on to head up the sound departments for Event Horizon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Both these men took point on The Dark Crystal. The atmospheric score by Trevor Jones (Notting Hill, Last of the Mohicans), The Dark Crystal was the cherry on top.

The Reaction

Pre-release, The Dark Crystal was marketed to kids and families, who were not prewarned exactly how intense the movie was. Today, this movie’s fanbase is made up of adults and teenagers for a reason. It took Henson for people to take puppetry seriously. To see what could be achieved in characters like Yoda (who was developed at the same time as The Dark Crystal was being made.) The Dark Crystal was pitched at children in the early eighties because they believed puppets were for children.

Admittedly, Audiences did have a habit of exposing their kids to stranger cinema back then, other examples from the same period included Watership Down, The Last Unicorn, and The Return to Oz. But the others mentioned were book adaptions, so there was some expectation of what was coming before theatregoers bought tickets. The Dark Crystal was a complete surprise.

The Dark Crystal was shot stylistically more like an adult fantasy/horror. Scenes like the podlings being drained of their essence, the death of the Skeksis Emperor, and the murder of the podling village were unsettling, even for grown-ups. The production team added small details like the food on the table of the Skeksis banquet still alive and wriggling, which, along with the realism of the puppetry, made it all the more vivid and, therefore, frightening. Henson’s Magnum Opus was beautiful and groundbreaking. He got puppets to behave more organically than ever before on screen. But he did it in a way that was a little too much for the age group that the marketing team pitched it at.

The critics slammed The Dark Crystal on release, the New York Times, The Post, and Time Magazine all eviscerated it. To make matters worse, there were claims that it mocked the culture of certain religions, and as a result, it was banned in most Islamic countries. All of the Arabic and Farsi dub copies were destroyed.

The film cost twenty-six million dollars to make. To put this into perspective, Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark was released the year before, and that had a budget of twenty million. The resulting box office return was only $40.5 million. When Labyrinth crashed, only making $12.9 million (on top of a 25 million budget), Henson was heartbroken and never directed again.

But the film gradually grew in popularity and took on cult status. It is now the abiding memory of most millennials’ childhood. There was a failed attempt at a sequel, which turned into a successful comic book series, The Power of the Dark Crystal. There are several young adult novels, and The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance Netflix TV series also has a graphic novel offshoot. A large, healthy fandom has grown up around the box office flop.

I like to think of Dark Crystal as…a work of art, but it’s not a personal work of art. It’s not just something I did,” Jim Henson said of his film. “Frank and Brian, and Gary [Kurtz], and all the performers—hundreds of people—created this thing and, as a work, I think it’s something we’ll always be happy with. All in all, we spent over five years working on the film. It’s probably the hardest thing that I’ve ever worked on. It was the most work. It was the most difficult, but it was the most fun. It was the most rewarding and, of all the projects that I’ve ever worked on, it's the one that I’m most proud of”

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