If you’re a geek of a certain age, then you definitely remember the movie your parents may have taken you to where someone who sounded like Gonzo attacked an elf. (Whoops, spoilers?)
That movie was called The Dark Crystal, and as a young girl, I was confused by it because some of the voices I loved on “The Muppet Show” were coming out of bodies that were hunched over, vulture-shaped, and decidedly not silly or chicken-loving.
It wasn’t until I began my “geek awakening” in my teens that I learned that the Jim Henson Co. created the movie in 1982 to showcase their talents as puppeteers and legitimate storytellers, and would do again in 1986 with Labyrinth, and again in 1999 with “Farscape.”
It’s enough to make me wonder why puppeteers are so darn touchy about their craft.
Anyhow, the folks at the Jim Henson Co. are at it again, for Pip Bulbeck at The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news that Daybreakers directors Peter and Michael Speirig will be heading up a sequel to that original 1980s film to be called Power of the Dark Crystal.
Partnered in the production will be Australian company Omnilab Media who have had their hands and wallets into such productions as Where the Wild Things Are and the upcoming Tomorrow, When the War Began. They’re bringing their own special effects house Illoura to the party, and giving them the control of the CGI elements.
The plot of the story, written by Australian Craig Pearce (Moulin Rouge!, Charlie St. Cloud) from an original script by Annette Duffy and David Odell, will go like this:
Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, Power of the Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.
That kinda has me confused, because my quick refresher trip to Wikipedia noted that there were three suns which while in conjunction created the event which restored peace and harmony to the Crystal planet; now there’s a fourth sun inside the middle of the planet? I guess it’s just something I’ll have to overlook if I want to see Gelflings again (and I do).
No word yet on exactly when production will commence.
I heard it's going to be a mix of live action and animatronics with judicious sprinklings of CGI. Oh, brings joy to my old-school heart.
It may be a sequel, but at least it's not a re-make!
My boyfriend and I are going through “Farscape” season 1 right now and even though I know the broad outlines of what happens, I still marvel at how well that show was made.
Farscape was a visual (and early on, narrative) marvel. My wife and I made it through three seasons of Farscape before giving up. To this day, a year later, she still shakes her head and sighs, “but it was so pretty!”