The Dark Crystal (1982)

Director: Jim Henson, Frank Oz

On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal, and so restore order to his world.

Within the first few minutes, I asked myself “Are you honestly going to watch this?” I nevertheless gave it the benefit of the doubt, thinking it would become interesting, as the film has very good ratings and is still the highest grossing puppet film.

I should have hit that EJECT button. This is something that belongs as 20-minute episodes on afternoon TV after kids did their homework. This is not for adults. The plot is incoherent and the dialogue and character actions weird. Even the voicing is not for a mature audience, being incredibly childish.

For a shard that’s so special Jen certainly obtained it with incredible ease. From the very beginning, he said he had no idea what to do with the shard (and even threw it away at one stage!!). Yet, when he finally reached the Crystal, he knew exactly what to do – with no guidance or advice whatsoever. This is simply not credible. I became increasingly restless watching this, and couldn’t wait for it to end.

Jim Henson has a very vivid imagination indeed. I certainly can commend him on his puppetry. The puppets truly are amazing. But that’s as much as I liked about the film.

Would I watch it again? Definitely not.