The Dark Crystal

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
(Redirected from Dark Crystal)

"When single shines the triple sun
 What was sundered and undone
 Shall be whole, the two made one
 By gelfling hand or else by none."

A 1982 science fiction/fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz with creature design by fantasy artist Brian Froud. Out of any of Jim Henson's works, this was probably one of the most complex, being done completely with animatronic puppets in the well developed setting of the planet Thra.

One thousand years ago, the titular crystal was whole. When it cracked on the day of the Great Conjunction of the planet's three suns, it split its UrSkek keepers into the Exclusively Evil and aggressive Skeksis and the Always Lawful Good but all too passive Mystics (aka urRu). A few centuries later, the Skeksis discover a prophecy that the elf-like Gelflings will heal the crystal, thus undoing their reign, they sent their Garthim to hunt them down and kill them all. All except for the protagonists Jen and Kira, the last of their kind.

Though it didn't do as well on its initial theatrical run, it spawned a cult following large enough to warrant a string of spin-offs, mostly in print. First came Legends of the Dark Crystal, a two-volume Manga prequel by Tokyo Pop, then The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths, a Graphic Novel prequel trilogy by Archaia Entertainment. A failed attempt at a film sequel gave rise instead to two comic book limited series, Power of the Dark Crystal and Beneath the Dark Crystal. Netflix released a prequel series, Dark Crystal, Age of Resistance, in 2019, but cut it after one season despite critical acclaim.

Tropes used in The Dark Crystal include:
  • Action Survivor: The Chamberlain is a villain example. The Skeksis as a whole are depicted as lazy Upper Class Twits, and the Chamberlain is more so than the others, being frail and gaunt, losing the test of strength against the General. Despite this, after being humiliated, stripped of his robes, and banished from the castle, he copes surprisingly well, not only surviving but managing to reclaim his position by capturing Kira.
  • Adam and Eve Plot: Never directly addressed, but since Jen and Kira are the Last Of Their Kind, it's pretty obvious.
  • Age Without Youth: Applies to both the Mystics and Skeksis (though they're not technically immortal), but the Skeksis suffer a bit more from it, especially when you learn that they weren't originally evil, but rather represented the passionate, hedonistic side of the Urskek, and were rather pleasant to party with. Then they aged, for a thousand years.
  • Alien Lunch: Some of the things the Skeksis eat are still alive.
  • Alien Sky: The planet Thra's three suns.
  • All There in the Manual: Pretty much all the names of the Skeksis and Mystics are featured in the novelization and "Art of" book.
  • Animal Eye Spy: The Skeksis with their crystal bats.
  • Animated Armor: The Garthim, evidently.
  • Artificial Limbs: The Skeksis Slave Master has a hook for a hand while the Scientist has a mechanical arm. Their Mystic counterparts have wooden limbs in the same places.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: Literally; since the Mystics and Skeksis are actually two halves of one being - if one of them dies, so does their counterpart.
  • The Beast Master: Kira can call out to just about any animal out there and coax it into helping her. There are a lot or weird animals out there and this ability comes in very handy.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Played with. The protagonists, the Gelflings, are obviously intended to be attractive, despite any Uncanny Valley that may be invoked by looking at them. The pure urRu are made to look noble and sagacious, and when they die, they fade into sparkles. The Skeksis on the other hand, are clearly intended to look twisted, deformed and vulture-like, which is made even worse by their advanced age. Aughra, however, is quite hideous and warty, yet proves to be a helpful character. A bit of background checking shows that in the grand scheme of things, she's actually supposed to be True Neutral, and not one to take sides. It gets really confusing with the Podlings, who are supposed to be a good, Closer to Earth race, yet somehow they wound up looking cute yet ugly at the same time. Brian Froud did admit that he toned down their appearance from the earliest incarnations, because those were far too grotesque and potato-like.
  • Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Gelfling females have wings; males don't.

Jen: Wings? I don't have wings.
Kira: Of course not. You're a boy.

  • Yet they're never seen to be used to actually fly up. More like |falling with style.
  • In the novelization, Kira explains to Jen that long ago, female Gelflings were able to fly properly rather than just flutter to the ground.
  • A Boy and His X: Though, Fizgig, an alien something like a cross between a terrier and a Pirahna, belongs to the girl, the trope is played straight in the prequel manga.
  • Cast of Snowflakes: The Skeksis all have complex personalities, hobbies, and goals, mostly given in novelizations, and each has his own elaborate and unique style of clothing. However, as far as the movie is concerned, only the General, Chamberlain, and Scientist have roles that are important to the plot.
  • Darker and Edgier: This is a Jim Henson film, the guy who did The Muppets and Sesame Street, although the main concept designer was actually more in the mystical and deep material that makes up the strange creatures. Storywise, it involves mass genocide, gruesome deaths, Fate Worse Than Death and Everything Is Trying to Kill You thrown into the mix.
  • Deadly Decadent Court: The Skeksis
  • Disney Death: Kira
  • Disney Villain Death: The Skeksis Scientist
  • Does Not Like Shoes: According to The Merch (in the form of her 2001 action figure), Kira goes barefoot.
  • Duet Bonding: Kira and Jen have a nice duet as they cruise down the river.
  • Eccentric Mentor: Aughra. The last thousand years have left her much wiser, if a little dotty.
  • Either/Or Prophecy: "...by Gelfling hand, or else by none."
  • Empty Shell: The Podling slaves and the Garthim.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Or the beginning. Same thing.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Hilariously addressed when the Garthim bring Aughra to the banquet hall; for all their faults, the Skeksis aren't too fond of cussing, the Ritual Master telling her to "watch your tongue!"
  • Everything Fades: The Mystics fade when they die.
  • Eye Scream: Aughra can remove her own eyeball at will and use it like a remote camera. While it doesn't hurt her, it certainly is weird...
    • In the backstory, she lost her other eye and came to be how she looks in the film when she laid on the ground to watch the Great Conjunction. A beam of intense light struck her eye, destroying it and burning her badly.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Kira, thanks to the Podlings. It saves her from being drained by SkekTek later.
  • Fusion Dance: Foreshadowed by the Synchronization of the urRu and Skeksis.
  • Genocide Backfire: If there's only one race of people that can end your reign of tyranny you better make sure you wipe them all out rather then leaving a few behind.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: Garthim. They've even got a bit of Fiddler-Crab likeness to them. One arm is a massive slicing claw, the other is a powerful gripping hand.
  • Grotesque Gallery / Ugly Cute: A fascinating case, since the entire world is composed of muppets and environment that are either deliberately alien or designed off of nature's less cute critters, making the whole thing one dark fairy tale based on look alone.-
  • Hair of Gold: Kira
  • Heel Face Turn: Completely subverted with the Chamberlain. Defrocked and kicked out of the Skeksis' castle, he makes obvious peace overtures to Jen and Kira. When Jen stabs him for his pains, he promptly kidnaps Kira and scuttles back to the castle to redeem himself in the eyes of the other Skeksis. Whether he did it because of the hostile reception he got, or because he was Evil All Along, is left for the viewer.
  • The Hero: Jen
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Many of the cute little fuzzballs that force SkekTek into the bottomless shaft go down with him. Fizzgig too, though he ends up catching hold of something and gets rescued by Aughra. And the Landstriders, who throw themselves at the much-stronger Garthim to protect Jen and Kira. And of course, Kira herself.
  • Hobbits: This is more or less what gelflings and/or Podlings are supposed to be. They're much smaller than all the other people in the setting, and the podlings are definitely merry.
  • Immortality Seeker: The Skeksis' goal; given how the Emperor dies of old age at the beginning and the rest of them seem pretty old themselves, they aren't making much progress towards it.
  • Ironic Name: The Skesis scientist's laboratory, where he keeps all those jailed critters and drains Podlings and Gelflings from their vital essence? Its official name is "the Chamber of Life".
    • Conversely, it's a Meaningful Name for the Skesis themselves, as they extract a life-prolonging potion from the Pod People and Gelflings in there.
  • Jabba Table Manners: The Skeksis, Sans SkekEkt, who happens to be a dainty eater.
  • Killer Rabbit: Fizzgig looks cute until he opens his mouth.
    • Furthermore, the animals in the Skeksis' laboratory use their combined cute fluffiness to escape and savagely maul the Scientist down into the furnace, saving Kira.
  • Large Ham: The Skeksis General.
  • Last of His Kind: Jen and Kira both thought they were the last Gelflings left alive. And then they met each other...
  • Living Relic: Augrha, who is almost as old as the planet.
  • The Load: Arguably, Jen. He rivals the Puma Man as a hero who accomplishes almost nothing.
  • MacGuffin Escort Mission: Pretty much the whole movie; get the shard to the Dark Crystal.
  • Mad Scientist: The Skeksis Scientist
  • Meaningful Name: Podlings. Word of God stated they were supposed to resemble potatoes.
  • Mecha-Mooks: The Garthim, who are soulless constructs.
  • Mineral MacGuffin: The crystal shard.
  • Mordor: The castle of the Skeksis and the land surrounding it are dark, barren, and forbidding. That is until the Skeksis are no more.
  • Mythopoeia: The book The World of the Dark Crystal covers a lot of back story.
  • Needle in a Stack of Needles: Jen has to dig through a box of nearly identical crystal shards to find the one that actually is the missing chunk of the Dark Crystal. He identifies it after using a trick with his flute which he learned from the urRu.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Apparently, female gelflings have wings; who knew.
    • Earlier in the ruins if you pay attention to the wall art, you can see some of the figures have wings.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: Variation. The Skeksis try to foil the prophecy by mass-murdering every gelfling they can find, the Garthim orignally designed for this purpose. As always, they miss a couple...
  • No Body Left Behind: Jen's Master disappears when he dies.
  • Noisy Nature: Most of the scenes of the flora and fauna of Thra are rife with animal/insect sound and there's a plant with seed pods that take off like little copters with an audible 'pop'
  • No Ontological Inertia: If a Skeksis dies, a corresponding mystic dies, and vice versa.
    • Also, in the final scene, the Garthim collapse into empty shells, due to whatever magic used to create them now gone.
  • Not Quite Flight: Kira's wings let her glide and slows her fall - even when holding Jen - but she can't use them to gain lift. The novelization claims female gelfling could actually fly many ages ago, presumably evolution has caused their wings to atrophy.
  • Novelization:
  • Obviously Evil: Uhm, the Skeksis. Big, ugly, buzzard-like creatures. Clearly evil.
  • Overly Long Gag: The banquet scene was two minutes showcasing the Skeksis' atrocious table manners. Whether this was done for humor or to unnerve the viewers (or both) is hard to say.
  • Positive Discrimination: The female protagonist gets big pretty butterfly wings and superpowers. The male protagonist gets... um... to hook up with the female protagonist?
  • Power Crystal: The Dark Crystal.
  • Precursors: The urSkeks
  • Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Yep, this one too.
  • Psychic Link: The Gelflings exchange their backstories through a touch-enabled mindlink that Kira calls Dreamfasting.
  • Puppy Love: Jen and Kira; seriously, it cannot be more obvious.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Fizzgig
  • Rule of Three: The Great Conjunction of the three suns, the recurring visual motif of triangles.
  • Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Describes Aughra's personality pretty well.
  • Sissy Villain: SkekEkt is the most flamboyant of the Skeksis, but they as whole are rather fragile due to their old age.
  • Smug Snake: The Chamberlain, who is constantly grinning and often humming as he plots.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Kira.
  • Spiritual Successor: Labyrinth, Mirror Mask, and others. Highly influential within the Fairy Tale branch of fantasy's evolutionary tree. Not to mention the world of practical puppeteering.
  • Staff of Authority - The Skesis emperor carries a scepter which designates his office. In the death scene of the first emperor, Chamberlain indicates his eagerness to take over by reaching for the scepter.
  • Starring Special Effects
  • Stupid Good: Jen's adoptive father even admits he shouldn't have waited until he was on his deathbed to explain what to Jen what his quest is, and this lack of foresight requires Jen to figure the whole thing out himself, something he clearly could not have done without Kira's help. He also apparently never saw reason to teach Jen how to read, a skill which would have been very useful in said quest, something which, again, was helped by Kira having more sensible guardians.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: The novelization claims the UrSkeks are this.
  • Synchronization: Between the urRu and the Skeksis
  • There Is Another: Jen believed he was the last surviving Gelfling until he ran into Kira (and vice versa).
  • Viewers Are Goldfish: The narration and Jen repeat what we already know a lot.
  • Verbal Tic: The Chamberlain's whimper.

"...mmmmMMMMMmmmmmm..."

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Dark_Crystal?oldid=2014497"