The World of "The Dark Crystal" (1983)

The World of "The Dark Crystal" (1983)

57 minutes

This documentary feature provides a behind the scenes look at the work that went into the making of The Dark Crystal (1982). The focus is mostly on the work that went into designing the creatures and in bringing them to life on screen. Little to no time is spent on the development of the story which seems to have come after the creatures were designed. Some of the creatures were puppets, some were not. Some were puppets in some scenes and not in other scenes.

Most of the characters were operated by more than one person. One person might be inside the creature operating parts of it while others were outside around it operating other parts of it, like the eyes or the tail. 

People interviewed for this documentary included

• Jim Henson, producer/director
• Brian Froud, conceptual designer
• Wendy Widener Froud, Gelfling supervisor
• Gary Kurtz, producer
• Frank Oz, director
• Lyle Conway, Skeksis co-supervisor
• Fred Nihda, Garthim supervisor
• Kathryn Mullen, performer

Thoughts

I might have seen this documentary back in 1983, when I think it must have played on TV. I'm not sure. I might have just seen clips from it back then but not the whole thing. This time around it was included on the DVD that I borrowed from the library. 

It is amazing how much time and effort went into making The Dark Crystal. They could easily have doubled the length of this film and still not covered everything.