It’s the latter of course who have the most fun, revelling in the Skeksis’s camp sadism, mangled argot and baroque phrases like “my most adored of the five ocular castigations”. Though not huge success upon release, The Dark Crystal has since grown in popularity in large part thanks to the … Original release The other key upgrade this time around, of course, is the star-studded voice cast: on team Gelfling, we have bright young things Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor Joy and Game of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel joined by Helena Bonham Carter and Lena Headey, while on Team Skeksis we have the likes of Simon Pegg, Mark Hamill, Awkwafina and Harvey Fierstein. And on the destined-to-invade-your-nightmares front, there is the “peeper beetle”, a living tentacular swamp, and an event that is Thra’s answer to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There were certainly reasons to be wary about this 10-episode prequel adventure. Read about our approach to external linking. Audio language(s)

MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS #55 First Look ... Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivelä Debut ABBOTT: 1973 in ... JUST BEYOND: WELCOME TO BEAST ISLAND First Look ... POWER RANGERS: SINS OF THE FUTURE New Look ... WE ONLY FIND THEM WHEN THEY’RE DEAD #2 Sells Out and ... HBO MAX LANDS BESTSELLING BOOM! It’s notable and heartening that, with its exclusively female leaders, Gelfling society is a matriarchal one – but also the writers of the new version, Will Matthews and Jeffrey Addis, deserve credit for never laying this element on thick or patronising the audience with ‘girl power’ imperatives. Attempts to begin development began as early as 2012, but stagnated until a successful pitch to Netflix, at which point filming commenced in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile the final marker of the show’s success may be quite how stealthily its deeper themes get under the skin. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance review: Four stars This prequel to the cult puppet fantasy could have been a mere nostalgia trip.

5670 Wilshire Blvd. Visually, of course, it has one foot in modern technology: where the original had to have human actors taking the place of puppets, and trudging through real-life locations, for its shonky wide shots, here seamlessly-integrated and dazzling CGI vistas give a sense of the full expanse of Thra. That’s to say, the ‘uncanny valley’ paradox runs both ways: set against all the CGI trickery foisted upon us, these figures’ unashamed fakeness makes them seem that much more authentic. Wendy Froud, Brian Froud, and now for the first time their son Toby Froud all take part in the series, handling character design and 3D forms/textures respectively. The need to engage with the here-and-now; the moral complicity of those who kowtow to a corrupt political status quo, and the cost of disrupting nature’s cycle; all these subjects resonate forcefully, while never feeling forced into the script.

Old and modern talent were incorporated into the prequel, with famous actors such as Mark Hamill coming in alongside the legacy Froud family who worked on the original film.

10 It premiered on August 30, 2019. But this isn’t much of a drawback, in this instance, set against the pleasures of a world teeming with life.

(By contrast, those barking fluffball Fizzgigs are given little to do this time round, and will surely be involved in some collective bargaining on their screen time should a second series follow). But altogether, that conspires to give it a compelling, elliptical quality, as if it was something conjured straight from Henson’s – or indeed our own – dreams. The Jim Henson CompanyNetflix

Louis LeterrierLisa HensonHalle Stanford of seasons 46–61 minutes Taron EgertonAnya Taylor-JoyNathalie EmmanuelDonna Kimball Voices of The Dark Crystal (1982) and 1986’s Labyrinth were both nightmarish fantasy-adventures, set in warped fairy tale kingdoms, whose stature seems only to have grown in the collective memory ever since.

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But perhaps a fightback is brewing – and it’s coming from a man who died 29 years ago. Cast Distributor