definitely darker than the usual Muppet fare!
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SpaceMonkey-Mafioso — 10 years ago(September 08, 2015 03:44 PM)
Yes and no. The first couple seasons of The Muppet Show had its dark and strange moments. For example: The Alice Cooper episode.
And there were always Muppet monsters eating other Muppets. But it was always done with a comic flare, unlike Dark Crystal.
"Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?" -
Godzilla1981 — 9 years ago(September 25, 2016 03:36 AM)
A couple of thoughts:
- This is not a Muppet movie, really. There are no real Muppets in the entire film. There are puppetry and animatronics, yes, but it was all a highly evolved form and culmination of everything Henson had done and learned up to that point. Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock..THAT stuff is Muppets, and is great.
But The Dark Crystal was a different entity entirely. - I would say that it is far more than a minor classic. I think even if you're not a massive Henson fan, or simply massive fan of this film, that it stands out, and even stands alone, in cinema history. Nothing quite like it, in it's scale or rich texture, with not a single lone human actor in the entire film, was ever done beforehand, nor has ever been truly done since. This was a fully realized, almost "living" world they pain-painstakingly created. The film was very difficult to make, and was an absolute passion project and labor of love. I honestly don't think any film like The Dark Crystal will ever be made again.
Labyrinth used many things that Henson tried or learned while making Crystal, but it is not even on the same level, really. A great film in it's own right (though somewhat ruined, I've always felt, by certain interference to make it more of a David Bowie vehicle, and not simply him acting a part in a film). But The Dark Crystal, I feel, was Henson's masterpiece. It was the ultimate expression of his art form, for sure. And for that alone, I think it is historically significant, as WELL as being an amazing film.
- This is not a Muppet movie, really. There are no real Muppets in the entire film. There are puppetry and animatronics, yes, but it was all a highly evolved form and culmination of everything Henson had done and learned up to that point. Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock..THAT stuff is Muppets, and is great.