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I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Events are moving faster and faster as we get closer to the finale. Today we’ve got chases and escapes, 1:24:28-1:15:47 on the Blu-ray.

Jen has regained consciousness, and he and Fizzgig make their way through the cavernous tunnels. The atmosphere is very cavelike, so my guess is he’s still in the tunnels under the castle and not the castle proper. Fizzgig growls and barks loudly, and Jen tells him to keep quiet. Jen is perhaps speaking for the audience when he says to Fizzgig, “Some help you’ve been.” Jen steps forward into an opening and looks around. This is just long enough of a pause so that we know something is about to happen, and it does. One more step forward, and Jen he falls into darkness.

The screen is pitch black in silence for a few seconds, making a lot of viewers think something’s wrong with their TVs, until Jen moves up into frame, holding his head. We then see Fizzgig above him and, wow, the hole he fell into is huge. How did he not see it? I guess he was still dazed from getting knocked out earlier.

Then there’s a great shot with Jen in the foreground and blackness behind him. There are scary noises, and then several Garthim emerge from the blackness. We only see their glowing purple eyes at first, and then their forms as they enclose around Jen. No CGI here, people, this effect was done in front of the camera, courtesy of the lighting guys. I love lighting tricks like these in movies. There’s a similar one in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet where Laura Dern’s character, in a white dress no less, emerges from darkness all around her, and it amazes me every time. Jen says, “Garthim” right before they appear, showing that he’s been a fast learner about the world beyond his valley. He started the movie not knowing they existed, and now he can recognize the sound of them approaching.

Action! Jen shows some mad skills, weaving and ducking away from the Garthim’s claws, even jumping over one of them and landing on the other side of the room, separating him from the group of them. It’s Gelfling parkour! One Garthim lashes out with its claw and smashes the wall, with an orange-y light coming from the other side. Jen seizes the opportunity, and climbs through the hole. On the other side, he’s in the crystal shaft (shut yo’ mouth). In a shot that was in all the trailers and commercials, Jen climbs up the side of the shaft while a Garthim claw tries to grab him. It’s a “fantasy adventure” moment in its purest sense. Jen keeps climbing, taking a moment to look down, and it really does look like a lake of fire (lava?) down there, and not an inner sun. Who knows, maybe the inner sun is deeper.

The canon actually has something to say about this dark room. It’s called, simply, the Pit, and it’s where Garthim go when the wait to be summoned. The canon specifies that the Pit is right next to the crystal shaft, so it must be describing this scene. I have a couple of problems with this. First, when the Garthim were summoned earlier in the film, they didn’t come climbing out of the Pit, but they were already running around inside the castle. Second, if this room is where the Garthim live, how is it that one smack from one of them breaks open the wall? Maybe it demonstrates how this world has fallen so far into disrepair this close to the Great Conjunction, but that’s kind of stretch, even for me. No, this business about the Pit is just the fantasy cliché of giving every little thing an inflated importance. I say it’s scarier to say that the Garthim were down there in the darkness because they were relentless hunting Jen.

We then cut to outside the castle, where the Mystics have arrived at a big glob-looking thing that is the front door. This “front door” is shaped very similar to the weird goblet thing that the Skeksis’ Scientist collected his subjects’ essence in. This opening looks much larger in the manga Legends of the Dark Crystal, in which a huge crowd of Gelflings escaped through it. Perhaps it was made smaller after that event.

We don’t stay with that scene, though, because we’re quickly sent back to Jen. See what I mean about things moving fast now? Jen looks up and sees the Dark Crystal floating above him. We know it’s the Crystal, but he asks himself, “Is that the Dark Crystal?” This is significant in that we’ve seen the Crystal several times, but this is Jen’s first time seeing it, after hearing so much about it. He reaches the opening to the Scientist’s lab, the chamber of life, and he climbs inside. The lab is empty, except for Aughra, who now has her eye back in its socket. He exclaims “You’re alive!” reminding audiences that the last he saw of Aughra was her home going up in flames. She again says that there’s no time, and quotes the “When single shines the triple sun” line again. Is this repetition still needed so late in the movie? Doesn’t the audience get it by now?

Jen asks which way Kira has gone. Aughra points, and Jen exits to the right of the screen. There’s some real subtle stage direction here, because a few scenes earlier, Kira left the lab by going to the left of the screen. As we’ll see, they’ll eventually arrive at the Crystal Chamber, but from separate directions. Why does Aughra send Jen in the opposite direction that Kira went? Is she in batty old lady mode, or does she somehow know how things’ll play out if the Gelflings take opposite routes through the castle? We can only speculate.

Then, just that fast, we’re taken back outside again, to the Mystics. Each scene is just a few seconds during this stretch of the movie. Two Garthim are standing guard (as opposed to being in the Pit) and they move to block the Mystics’ entrance. The Mystics do their deep chant again, and the Garthim are somehow mesmerized. They part ways and let the Mystics pass. There’s an amusing bit of staging to this, as five Mystics are in the shot, doing the chant, only to have two more in the background poke their heads up at the last minute. I guess those two are the 20 Feet From Stardom Mystics. I think it’s safe to assume that the chant works similarly to the soul-speaking demonstrated by Kira throughout the film. It’s interesting to note that the Garthim remain subdued under the Mystics’ power, even after they stop chanting and continue forward.

Finally, we have a quick couple of shots of Fizzgig rolling around inside the castle, which is the filmmakers letting us know where he is, moving all the pieces into play for the finale. In this shots, we can get a good look at the various symbols carved into the walls, including a large black triangle, again emphasizing the importance of this world’s three suns.

Next: The world hangs in the balance.

****

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I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! The movie gets all dark and creepy again, 1:07:55-1:12:27 on the Blu-ray.

We’ve got a brief scene of Jen, still buried in rubble, and Fizzgig at his side, mewling and making some small attempt to dig him out. You can actually see Jen’s hand and the crystal shard in this shot, but they’re hard to spot because they’re covered in dust and blend in with the rocks. What do we think, was that intentional or not? There’s a nice bit of acting on Fizzgig here, as he fails to move the rocks, and then leans back, looking up at the ceiling in sadness. Fizzgig doesn’t have a lot of quiet moments, usually barking and growling at whatever, but here is a rare quiet scene for him, showing his sadness in his inability to help his new friend.

From there, we cut to the Chamber of Life, better known as the Skeksis’ Scientist’s lab, where we saw him steal the essence from a Podling a few scenes earlier. Here we get a wide shot of the entire room, giving us a good look at its layout. Off to one side, there’s a big opening in the floor, with a green light coming out of it. It’s left up to our imaginations as to what might be under there. The animals’ cages are all around the room, and a Crystal Bat is one of them, showing that the Scientist is experimenting on them as well as on this world’s natural creatures. Either that, or this room is also where the Crystal Bats are bred and raised. Moss is growing up through cracks in the floor, and a white light – not candlelight but looking more electric – comes out of a bunch of oddly-shaped lamps all around the room. From this, we can surmise that yes, the castle too is a living thing, further reinforcing Brian Froud’s refrain of “all things are alive” on this world.

The next shot is a table with various ghoulish medical instruments on it, and Aughra’s disembodied eyeball is on there, too. It’s all slimy and shiny, and, somehow, able to move about on its own, looking around the room. How did it get there? Did the Skeksis take it from her, or did she leave it there as a bit of spycraft on her part? The camera pans up to show Aughra still in the same cage as when we last saw, pretty much right next to the table. From this, I’d say it’s likely the Scientist took her eye from her. For what reason, we can only speculate.

The Scientist has Kira with him, and her forces her into the chair, the same one we saw earlier when he drained a Podling of its essence. It’s here we see why that earlier scene was so important. It was nightmarish and horrific, all to set up this moment. Kira is in the same position as that poor doomed Podling, so we in the audience know what she’s in for. It cranks up the suspense big time.

The Scientist throws the switch himself, instead of having one of the Podling slaves do it. During the previous Scientist scene, he did a lot of posturing and dramatic speechmaking during this process, but this time he says very little. Part of this was for exposition purposes, but part shows that in this second scene, he’s operating with a sense of urgency. He knows a Gelfling is prophesized to end the Skeksis, so it’s on him to take her essence as quick as possible before that can happen. The door to the crystal shaft (shut yo’ mouth) opens, and we get a really good look at the reflector crystal, as it moves into place, an almost 3-D effect.

Stuff of nightmares: The reflector glows bright purple, and shines a purple beam right into Kira’s face. The pained expression on her face is just terrifying. A few drips of liquid start to drop into a container at her side, as the Scientist says, “Yes, essence of Gelfling.”

Back to the tunnel, the rocks next to Fizzgig move, as Jen regains consciousness and emerges from the rubble. Sure, we all knew he wasn’t dead, but why show this now? With a quick, abrupt edit from Kira’s struggle back to the tunnel? Some part of him is responding to the agony she’s feeling, and that’s what wakes him and gives him the strength to dig himself free. This is made evident with him crying out, “Kira, fight them!” Back in the chamber, Kira can hear him, responding, “Jen?” OK, maybe they’re within earshot of each other, but I find that unlikely. Remember the second half of Froud’s refrain, that it’s not just “all things are alive,” but also “all things are connected.” So there’s some sort of mental telepathy thing happening here.

Aughra can feel it too, saying, “You, Kira, call the animals.” How does Aughra know Kira’s name. Given Aughra’s status as a recluse, I doubt they met prior to the events of the film. No, Aughra, who has the whole “Earth mother” thing going on, could hear/sense Jen’s crying out to Kira as well. Aughra then tells Kira to call to the animals, calling them to freedom. “You have the gift,” Aughra says. How does Aughra know this? Do all Gelflings have this gift, or can Aughra sense it in Kira?

Kira sings/speaks to all the caged animals in the room, and this gives us some closeup shots of some real quirky-looking animals. Remember that this ability to communicate with wildlife is called “soul-speaking,” and the manga Legends of the Dark Crystal showed that the Skeksis’ Chamberlain can do it too. Probably not the Scientist, who tells Kira to be quiet. She doesn’t, and continues singing to the animals. DarkCrystal.com has translations of what she’s singing if you’re interested (it’s nothing exciting). The animals all start going nuts in their cages, including one jumping up and down, for an impressive piece of puppetry.

The Scientist tells Kira to stop, and we get another closeup of him, this time seeing that he has two tubes going from the side of his head into his mouth, and that the monocle on his left eye appears to be bolted on. This dude was steampunk before there was steampunk. Aughra cries out, “Gelfling, free me!” She shakes on her cage, and the whole thing wavers, so it looks like she could probably break free by herself with a little more gusto. Similarly, the animals all break free of their cages and start running amok. There are way too many types of animal to list here, but I like the furry mole-like one, the little dinosaur-like one, and there’s even a bright turquoise one that flies across the screen for a frame or two. There’s even a break-the-fourth-wall moment with one animal running right at the camera.

The Scientist tries to order the animals back into their cages, but they won’t have it. More nightmare imagery as they climb all over him, biting him and hanging off of him. He reacts with great pain with this, once again suggesting he doesn’t have the physical prowess of some of the other Skeksis. He clumsily backs up against the switch, which shuts off the reflector, saving Kira. He further stumbles back, falling right into the shaft. Conveniently, part of the floor lowers, allowing this to happen. Did the animals somehow know to work the machinery to do this?

The Scientist falls into the shaft, and we see him plunge into a huge fire raging at the bottom. DarkCrystal.com tells us this is the “Lake of Fire,” which not actually a lake, but Thra’s inner sun, a huge ball of radiation at the planet’s center, which warms and provides life to its “inner world.” This contrasts the conclusion of the Creation Myths graphic novel, in which Aughra and her son Raunip visit the bottom of the shaft, to find a rocky surface covered with crystals. Perhaps they’re not at the bottom in that scene, but merely at some sort of unseen outcropping, leading to more underground tunnels.

As the Scientist falls into the pit, we get a brief shot of the Mystics, still on their long journey. One of them burns up into nothingness, again showing how closely they are connected to the Mystics. The other Mystics take just a second to notice this, and then they continue on. They’re now in a rocky, ashy terrain, with big clusters of rocks around them. Could these be graves? We don’t know.

Back in the chamber of life, Kira has a particularly ugly animal help her out of the chair’s restraints. She approaches Aughra, who, strangely, has become fatalistic, saying Kira is too late. “The Great Conjunction is at hand,” she says. “Now the Skeksis will have power over the stars!” Kira asks when the conjunction is, and Aughra says, “Very soon, when three suns touch.” So Kira is not too late, then why would Aughra say she is? I guess we have to chock this up to Aughra being out-of-sorts after seeing the Gelfling genocide and becoming a recluse in her observatory. Kira runs off to meet with Jen, and Aughra goes back to being a downer, saying, “Go, Gelfling, I fear, to death.”

The passage of time: There’s a shot of the three suns, further reminding the audience that the conjunction is on its way, followed by another shot of the Mystics on their long walk. They’re now in a completely different setting than where we just saw them. Either hours (days?) passed during that shot of the sun, or the Mystics are magic of some sort to cross these great distances. Giving the rapid pace of action inside the castle now that we’re in the third act, I’m leaning toward magic. The important thing about this shot is that the Skeksis’ castle is in the distance, establishing that the Mystics are getting close to their destination.

Next: Fun with monsters!

****

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I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Today, it’s the Skeksis’ moment of triumph, 1:05:53-1:07:54 on the Blu-ray.

We begin in a hallway in the castle, where two of the Skeksis are walking along. Joining them in mid-conversation, one says, “I like those grey ones that go mushy when you put them on your fork.” Whatever those “ones” are is left up to the viewers’ imaginations. Which two Skeksis are these? The short, fat one is the Gourmand, as we established during the dinner scene, and I think the other one is the Ornamentalist, but it’s hard to tell. He has those weird red hands like the Scientist, and that big curved tuft of hair like the Ritual-Master, but doesn’t have either of their voices. The original screenplay calls this character “the Designer,” which is not one of the named Skeksis in the canon. That’s close enough to “Ornamentalist,” though, that I think we can call this one as the Ornamentalist. (Remember, playing the which-Skeksis-is-which game can drive you crazy.)

They round a corner and find the Chamberlain, with his back to them. In the background, we can see more natural-looking tunnels, buttressed with wooden supports. From this, we can surmise that spot is where the underground labyrinth joins the main part of the castle. The Gourmand says, “Chamberlain! Get out! Get out!” The Chamberlain turns around, revealing Kira still in his clutches. The other two Skeksis freak the hell out, screaming “Gelfing! Gelfling!”

Thanks to a quick edit, the pair runs right into the throne room, still screaming, “Gelfling!” This could mean that the throne room is right around the corner from where they were, but I like the idea of them running through the whole castle in a panic before getting here. The setup of the throne room is interesting in this scene. The General is sitting on the throne as the new emperor, while the Ritual-Master is standing next to him inside this little alcove built onto the throne itself. This shows the Ritual-Master’s place as right hand man. The throne looks completely different from the one in the Legends of the Dark Crystal manga, which has me thinking that the manga’s throne room must be a different room in a different part of the castle. (The manga also has a bookshelf in its throne room, the only time books are seen in the canon.)

The Ornamentalist hollers “Help!” a bunch of times, which are not included in the Blu-ray’s subtitles. The Gourmand again does the gag in which a Skeksis refers to a Gelfling as “ugly.” The Chamberlain enters with Kira, who’s still struggling to get away from him. Most (all?) of the other Skeksis are in the room, and a Garthim stands motionless off to one side. “Royal sire,” the Chamberlain says, “I bring you Gelfling.” The General does a great double-take in response to this. I don’t know if it’s intentional or just the camera angle, but he looks cross-eyed in his reaction.

The Chamberlain makes his big speech, addressing not just the general, but the whole room. “I! I have done this! I have caught her! I bring you the Gelfling!” He puts the emphasis on “I” the whole time, squawking it bird-like. The Chamberlain adds, “I was wounded. I suffered horrible, searing pain.” This must be referring to Jen stabbing him with the shard. The canon has fleeting mentions of the Chamberlain’s way with words and his skills at flattery, and both the movie and the manga have shown him to have some limited mesmering ability, and we can see all that on display here. This is his big moment, and he wants everyone to know it.

The Skeksis’ Scroll-Keeper, the one who wears several rows of glasses at once, leans in close for a good look at Kira. “A live Gelfling,” he says, reaching out to touch Kira’s cheek with his finger. Interesting that he doesn’t seem as afraid of her as the other Skeksis. We know very little about the Scroll-Keeper. The canon says that he’s the smallest and “finest-featured” among the Skeksis, and that he often rewrote the Skeksis’ historical texts, changing the facts so history is written in his favor. Do we conclude that he studies Kira so closely because he’s planning to record this historic event as well?

The Ritual-Master is all business, saying, “Kill her! We are sworn to kill all Gelflings!” The Chamberlain draws Kira back, and insists, “No! She’s mine!” This seems odd for him to say, since he’s brought her there to give to them. I suppose it’s because he knows she’s his “bargaining chip,” and he’s still bargaining. The Scientist is now on the other side of the general, saying, “But, sire, you could drink her essence.” The Ritual-Master reminds everyone of the prophecy and continues to argue that Kira should be killed. The Scientist and the Ritual-Master are kind of like the angel and devil on the General’s shoulders in this scene. The General does his best King Solomon and says, “First we take her essence, then kill.”

The other Skeksis seem happy about this, crying “Drain her! Drain her!” If only the emperor gets to drink essence, then what are the rest of them so excited about? Is there some unseen benefit for all of them when the emperor drinks essence, or are they just that bloodthirsty? The scientist steps forward, takes Kira, and leads her away. The Chamberlain lets her go this time, perhaps because this was part of this plan all along? The next line of dialogue would seem to confirm that. The General says, “As for the whimpering Chamberlain, return his robes to him.” I love that he adds “whimpering” in there, a little insult just to remind the Chamberlain that he’s still boss. The Chamberlain bows, and does his famous whimper once more.

So this is the Chamberlain’s big moment of triumph, his returning from his journey and reclaiming what he had lost. This effectively ends the Chamberlain’s story. I suppose it’s good in that there’s a resolution here, but it’s not as good in that from this point forward, the Skeksis no longer have individual personalities. Throughout the rest of the film, the Skeksis act as a singular group, with everything they do, they do as one. This will streamline that plot as we head to the finale, simplifying matters so it’s Gelflings versus Skeksis at the end, but I can’t help but wonder how much richer of a film this could have been had the rivalry between the Chamberlain and the General tied into the finale.

Next: Down in the pit.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.