I went in knowing next to nothing about the film—I didn’t look at the Wikipedia page for it or search for any reviews about it—which was intentional. I wanted to really experience the movie without being influenced by, well anything. And I just have to say it: I loved Dark Crystal. I get the hype now. Not only was it a solid fantasy adventure movie, but it had an incredibly interesting world. There was a real story there, and a lot of lore. Not to mention the overall design of the film was fantastic. The puppets were awesome, and I loved how unique and interesting the environments were: such as Aughra’s home (with the orrery), the swamp, and even the Skeksis’s castle. There were also other details like how some of the customs were introduced within the first twenty to thirty minutes, and demonstrated the stark contrast between the Skeksis and the urRu. It was by far one of my favorite introductions for not only the hero, but also the villains. As a result, it created such an immersive world, and I could go on and on about every little detail about the story and characters.
There was so much potential, and I genuinely don’t know why they stopped with one film when so much could have been done with the Dark Crystal universe. So I’m not mad about the Netflix series being a prequel. Let me explain. While watching Dark Crystal, I came away conflicted. While I wanted to know more about the story, I wasn’t necessarily sold on a sequel. Not because I didn’t want to revisit the world with the original set of characters. I just liked the way the movie ended. It was a satisfying conclusion to Jen’s story. However, because it’s such a fascinating world, I wanted to know more about what happened before the events of the original movie. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of answers were provided by Dark Crystal thanks to the air-tight narrative, but there were no flashbacks to directly accompany them. As such, a number of my questions have to do with the origins of the prophecy, what led up to the situation with the Gelflings, and more of the history of the Skeksis, etc.. And from the way the final trailer for Age of Resistance looks, it seems like the series might cover a lot of what I wanted to know.
Now more than ever, I’m excited to finally watch Labyrinth.
