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I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Let’s watch it! Want to have some nightmares? This is the scene for it, 56:11-1:00:30 on the Blu-ray.

We cut from the previous scene, which had our heroes journeying across the idyllic forest, to indoors, with sad shots of animals in wooden cages. There’s no establishing shot of the exterior of the Skeksis’ castle, as the audience is already familiar enough with its look to know where we are. There’s also a Podling or two in the cages. This room is ironically called the “chamber of life.” One part of the canon states that it was in this room that the UrSkeks split into the Skeksis and the Mystics, but the Creation Myths graphic novel has that event taking place in the Crystal chamber, not in here.

The Skeksis’ Scientist, whose name is SkekTet in the canon, tells the animals to be quiet, and he takes one of the Podlings from a cage. He affixes the little Podling into a Medieval torture-looking chair, and says, “This won’t hurt. We just want to drain your living essence.” He clamps down the Podling’s hands with metal manacles so it can’t leave the chair. The Scientist has a strange left hand, looking all red and plastic. Is he merely wearing a glove, or does he have an artificial hand of some kind? He explains that once the Podlings have been drained of essence, they will be “Like the other Podlings here.” We’re of course to take this meaning the shriveled up Podling slaves we’ve seen throughout the film.

The Scientist orders one of those slaves to throw a switch, and a big door opens in front of the chair. Note that there are actually three Podlings strapped to chairs during this scene, but the focus is on the one in the center. The Scientist says that out there is “the great shaft of the Cystal.” So, we’re beneath the Crystal chamber, and the great shaft (shut yo’ mouth) is the whole it floats over. I don’t believe anyone’s ever attempted a map of the castle’s interior, but this room would have be in the underground parts of the castle.

The Scientist says, “Position the reflector,” but then he’s the one who throws the switch for this. I suppose that his behavior during this scene, where he does the whole “villain speech” thing, shows that he has a real flair for the dramatic. We see a secondary crystal move in place inside the door. The Scientist further exposits that this is the reflector, which captures the beams of the Dark Crystal above it. “Feel the power of the Dark Crystal,” he says.

Then, it happens. A purple beam of light shoots out of the reflector and into the Podling’s eyes as a look of terror hits its face. Of all the scary stuff in the movie, this is the biggest “stuff of nightmares” moment. The Scientist says the beam will rid the Podling of vital essence, which he describes as “Your fears, your thoughts.” Sure enough, we see a small vial next to the Podling, with green goop pouring into it from a tube. We don’t see where/how this tube is physically connected to the Podling, which is probably for the best. Then the nightmarish stuff becomes even more nightmarish as the Podling’s eyes turn white and its face shrivels up. It’s almost hard to watch.

The Scientist says only the emperor can drink essence. This is one of the Skeksis’ most important laws, and in the Legend of the Dark Crystal manga, we see a lot of paranoia about essence being stolen and consumed by someone other than the emperor. The canon futher elaborates, saying that after the Crystal cracked, the Scientist performed experiments on it, discovering this method of drawing essence from other creatures. Gelfling essence was prized among all others, which is why the Skeksis created the Garthim, to hunt down all the Gelflings for their essence. If the scientist can do all this, one wonders why he isn’t the Skeksis’ leader. In the manga, we can see how other Skeksis intimidate him, so we can theorize that he’s got the brains but not the strength.

The General, who you’ll remember was made the new emperor earlier in the film, enters asks “Is it ready?” The Scientist orders the door closed and offers the essence to the General, saying it’s very fresh and very strong. The General grabs the vial of essence and guzzles it down, without any sort of ceremony or pretense. The Scientist says the essence will make the general young again. Then he says a line not in the Blu-ray’s subtitles, “As emperor, you deserve it.”

There’s a fascinating bit of puppetry next, as the General’s skin starts to smooth out, for his so-called younger appearance. He watches with awe in a mirror as this happens, and is overjoyed at this, almost dancing around the room, saying “Young! Young!” It doesn’t last, though. We get another shriveling up effect on both the General’s face and his hand. He accused the Scientist of being a fraud. (So “fraud” is a concept on this world.) The General hulks out and smashes a table, then he walks off, calling the Scientist a “slave squeezer.” Are we to assume this is some sort of insult? Properly intimidated, the Scientist says it always worked better back when they used Gelflings.

As he says this, he walks past another cage, where Aughra is trapped inside. Remember the last time we saw Aughra, when she confronted the Skeksis during their dinner, the scene ended with her still as their captive, which is where we find her now. What are the Skeksis’ plans for her, I wonder? Is her essence on the menu? Would the reflector even work on her? We don’t know. But she does watch the Scientist with keen interest. Also note that Aughra’s cage is metal, while most of the other cages are wood, so we can speculate that the Skeksis still consider her a danger.

Why, at this point so late in the film, is all this stuff about essence-drinking being introduced? For one, it’s foreshadowing, in that one of our heroes will later end up in this room. Second, it ups the stakes, revealing that the Skeksis are not after the Gelfings just to stop the prophecy. No, they’re a lot nastier then that. They want the Gelflings’ very essence, which is more or less the same as killing them. Now that we’ve seen how rotten the Skeksis really are, we’re really rooting for Jen and Kira to make it.

Hey, we’re officially two-thirds of the way through the movie! It’s the home stretch!

Next: Animal versus animal carnage.

****

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

I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Let’s watch it! Time to meet some more new creatures, 55:01-56:10 on the Blu-ray.

We pick things up with Jen, Kira and Fizzgig having just escaped an encounter with the Skeksis Chamberlain. They’re running through a dark, forested area. Jen says that now he understands, and that he knows what he has to do. He asks “How do I get to the castle?” and Kira responds, “I’ll show you.” First, remember that the word “castle” always means the Skeksis’ castle and no other location in this world. Shorthand like this helps the audience not be confused. Second, how does Kira know where the castle is? We’re never told. There’s no evidence to support her ever having been there before, so maybe she learned its location from the Podlings, or from someone else? We don’t know.

What’s really important in these three lines of dialogue, though, is the change in Jen’s attitude. Just a few scenes back, he threw away the shard and rejected his quest. Then, he discovered the Wall of Destiny and encountered his first Skeksis. With that one-two punch, he’s learned the relationship between the shard and the Dark Crystal, and he’s seen the face of the enemy. Now he’s an all-new Jen, with a renewed sense of purpose. Remember the beginning of the film, when Jen says to the Master, “I’ll go where you send me, though I barely understand.” He’s now reached the point where he has that understanding. Therefore, instead of following someone else’s commands, he’s acting on his own, and making his own decisions to move forward. The movie doesn’t dwell on this, though. We’re transitioning from the second act to the third right now, so the filmmakers keep up the momentum.

Kira makes a few animals calls, and out walks a Landstrider. This is a big, hulking animal, walking on long, giraffe-like legs. There is a second one behind it, conveniently. Kira introduces them to Jen, revealing that they are Landstriders, and says the Podlings taught her how to call them. OK, from this was assume a lot of her education came from Podlings, but how much we still do not know.

Look closely: There’s actually a third Landstrider, a little baby one, walking between the two big ones. Aww, cuteness.

What do we know about Landstriders? The canon makes a big deal about how they are “natural enemies” of the Garthim, and are known to battle and sometimes defeat Garthim. Does this mean the Landstriders didn’t come into existence until after the Skeksis created the Garthim? No, because they can be seen in the Creation Myths graphic novels, which take place before the Crystal cracked. They are described as “intelligent” a few times, and they do seem to understand what Kira is saying when she speaks to them in the Podlings’ language. One wonders why the Podlings and/or Gelflings didn’t keep Landstriders around more often as protection against Garthim. We can speculate that because the Landstriders are intelligent creatures, and are therefore off living their own lives, and are not mere animals to be tamed. We can then further speculate that they are choosing to help Kira and Jen here, rather than doing so because they’ve been trained to.

Kira easily climbs onto the back of a Landstrider, and encourages Jen to do the same. They then have a nice little Han-and-Leia moment when Jen says “Kira, you don’t have to go,” and she merely answers, “I know.” Agreed to go the castle together, Jen climbs onto the second Landstrider with a little more awkwardness. We next get a little bit of comedy shtick as Kira tells Fizzgig to stay behind. Fizzgig freaks out, howling and roaring like crazy – and giving us another glimpse of the second row of teeth at the back of his throat – before Kira relents and says he can join them.

The music swells as the Landstiders take off running. Kira tells Jen to hang on, as they go fast. Believe me, I have scoured every inch of the tie-in books trying to find anything that says definitively just what kinds of speeds these things can reach, but no luck. The never-erroneous internet tells me that giraffes can reach speeds of 35 miles per hour, so there’s that, but could it be possible for Landstriders to tap into the same passage-of-time magic the Mystics are using (if that’s what they’re doing) to cover even larger distances? Possible, but, again, I’m only speculating.

We get a wide shot of Kira and Jen riding on the Landstriders’ backs as the Landstriders pick up speed. This was some of the most complicated puppetry in the whole movie. The Landstriders were performers on stilts, so the costumes had to be kept super-lightweight for them to move around. This was especially difficult with the Jen and Kira puppets on their backs, but this shot shows they managed it, somehow.

Jen says “The prophecy never said anything about this.” Kira answers, “Prophets don’t know everything.” Her casual use of the word “prophets” would seem to suggest that this is a relatively common thing in this world. This dialogue also reinforces the fact that even though we’re dealing with a prophecy, it’s about what might happen, not what will, so the ending of all this is not, ahem, set in stone.

There are several more shots of the two Gelflings riding the Landstriders, out of the shadowy woods and into a more sunny, brighter setting. This is a “hero moment,” for our protagonists, with swelling music, and continuing that forward progression as we ride alongside them, straight into act three.

Next: The essence… of nightmares!

****

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

I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Let’s watch it! Today, we’re at 53:40-55:00 on the Blu-ray. In one corner, Gelflings. In the other corner: Skeksis!

When we last left Jen and Kira, they had discovered the Wall of Destiny, and read that the crystal shard is needed to heal the Dark Crystal, and that a prophecy states this can only be done by Gelfling hand. They don’t get a chance to revel in this new knowledge, however, because the Skeksis’ Chamberlain has snuck up on them. He interrupts by saying, “Prophecy?” Kira immediately recognizes him as a Skeksis, and she reacts in fear, leading Jen away. This raises some questions, namely how does she know the Chamberlain is a Skeksis? Has she encountered Skeksis before, or does she only know about them from stories and whatnot? Or is she merely assuming this is a Skeksis? We don’t know.

The Chamberlain doesn’t attack, but instead tries to open a dialogue of sorts, saying, “Stay. Stay. Am friend.” He then says, “Prophecy cause all this trouble.” He admits that Skeksis killed all the Gelflings, but he calls this a “bad mistake,” and adds, “Skeksis fear Gelfling.” He further argues “Am friend,” reminding them that he saved them from the Garthim.

Kira encourages Jen not to listen, and says, “It’s a trick.” That raises some interesting points. We’ve seen how naïve Jen is to the world around him, but here Kira is cynical enough to know not to trust the Skeksis. At some point, somewhere, Gelflings must have learned not to trust whatever Skeksis tell them. It’s also worth noting that Fizzgig doesn’t like the Chamberlain at all, and constantly barks and growls at him throughout this whole scene.

The Chamberlain admits he is an outcast, and that if the Gelflings come with him to the castle he will be “outcast no more.” He repeats “Please,” several times in a whining, almost begging manner. “Show them you want peace,” he says to Jen. “Show them Gelflings will not harm us.” The music gets all weird here, and it seems Jen is starting to buy this. Kira steps between him and the Skeksis and he snaps out of whatever haze he’s in. The Skeksis continues “Please, please,” but Jen snaps “No!” at him, and he and Kira run off. The Chamerlain, apparently too large to pursue them through the opening the escaped through, stays behind. In one of my favorite shots in the whole movie, his gets angrier and growlier as he refrains, “Please! Wait! Please make peace!”

OK, what are to make of this exchange, and the fact that Jen seemed mesmerized for a second there by the Chamberlain? Also, why is the Chamberlain speaking in broken English in this scene when he doesn’t anywhere else in the film? The behind-the-scenes answer is that the original version of the film had the Skeksis speaking a fictional language throughout, and this would have been the first (only?) time one spoke in English. But, in terms of the story as we have it now, it’s interesting. In The Dark Crystal, there’s such a thing as soul-speaking. We see this in the movie whenever Kira communicates with animals, Disney princess-style. Turns out the Chamberlain has this ability as well, as we see him command a bunch of cute lil’ critters to do his bidding in the manga Legend of the Dark Crystal. A lot of fans believe that the Chamberlain is uses soul-speaking in this scene to mesmerize Jen, only for Kira to break the “spell.” It’s subtle, but you can kind of see it in the movie, especially the way the score makes itself known at that moment.

Hmmm… this is a short scene. How about we go over the voice actors?

Stephen Garlick as Jen. He had a number of TV roles in England in his childhood and teens, appearing in guest spots on The Tomorrow People, The New Adventures of Black Beauty, and even a 1983 Doctor Who serial, “Ibbotson.” It appears he left the acting game in the early ‘90s.

Lisa Maxwell as Kira. A child star in England, Maxwell has worked consistently in England, with a huge list of TV parts, including her own variety show, The Lisa Maxwell Show, in 1991. Last year, she joined the cast of the venerable English soap opera Eastenders.

Barry Dennen as the Chamberlain. Dennen has a long list of credits to his name, playing a number of character roles in everything from Jesus Christ Superstar to The Shining to Titanic. In the last 20 years or so, he’s worked mostly in voiceovers for animation and video games.

Billie Whitelaw as Aughra. The closest thing the movie has to stunt casting, Whitelaw was once a big name on radio and on Broadway. Her many film roles include Orson Welles’ Confidential Report, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Richard Donner’s The Omen, and Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz.

Percy Edwards as Fizzgig. As a child, Edwards developed a talent for mimicking animal sounds, which he turned into a successful career in radio, TV, and film. He was the “voice” of the Orca in Orca, the reindeer in Santa Claus: The Movie, and even the alien in Ridley Scott’s Alien.

We’ll end it there for today.

Next: Land-stridin’.

****

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

I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Let’s watch it! This post will be a long one, but wow is there a lot to talk about in this scene, 50:28-53:39 on the Blu-ray.

The previous scene ended at night, when, in a bout of frustration, Jen threw the crystal shard into the forest, rejecting his quest. It’s morning now, and – after a brief look at an anteater-like critter up in a tree – we get a quite romantic shot of Jen and Kira sleeping, with him in her arms. After seeing the Podling village, her home, destroyed, Kira has instead opted to stay with Jen. This says a lot about her, in that she’s devoting so much of herself to this stranger she just met. While Jen remains mostly unaware of his quest (still!) Kira somehow knows of his importance, or at least knows it’s important to stick by him.

In voiceover, Jen says he misses his master, the Mystics, and their valley. “I never loved them enough,” he says. That says a lot about his personality, and where he is mentally at this part of the story. He’s rejected his quest, but he’s still the good guy. So, we’re reminded of this by giving him regret, and showing his personal integrity, and that he has a big heart. This way, instead of us shaking our fists at him for being a quitter, we’re still on his side, because we see how troubled he is over all this.

Notice that while Jen and Kira are sleeping, Fizzgig is awake, doing the “watch dog” thing, in case there’s trouble. Jen and Kira wake at the same time (an after-effect of dream-fasting, perhaps?). Kira says they’re safe, but Jen, still wallowing in the dumps, says he doesn’t think anyplace is safe anymore.

Jen takes a look around, and finds that they’ve spent the night among a bunch of ruins, partially-fallen stone structures covered with vines and moss. Kira describes the ruins as “the houses of the old ones,” to which Jen follows up with, “our ancestors.” So, for as much as critics chide Jen for cluelessness, here he shows some knowledge of the world around him. We’re about to see him show a lot more. Kira finds the crystal shard where Jen threw it, in the center of a triangle-shaped stone. (Remember our Dark Crystal symbology: Triangles are a big deal because this world has three suns.) She picks it up, and it shows no signs of reacting to her at all.

Looking at a stone wall, Jen says he can feel something. He’s instantly taken with wonder at this place, while Kira shows some fear, saying bad things happened here once. It’s an interesting bit of role reversal, in that previous scenes had her jumping into action with him meekly following. Now he’s the one in the take-charge role and she’s the one urging caution. I don’t find this inconsistent, instead seeing this as the two of them being of one “type.” Jen reinforces this in his next line, in which he says he can tell this place was built by Gelflings. Kira reminds him that all the Gelflings are gone now, “killed by the Skeksis long ago,” she says.

They walk farther into the ruins and we get a better look at them. Hey, remember back when I insisted that fans don’t call the Skeksis’ castle a citadel? That’s because this place, according to the tie-in fiction, is named the Citadel. Also, it was clearly constructed out of carved rock. A lot of the architecture we’ve seen in the film was shaped out of living rock, with curved, natural angles. The Citadel, though, wasn’t shaped through magic or energy, but built with good ol’ engineering, including stonework and bricklaying. It’s ambiguous as to what level of technology the Gelflings achieved. The Legends of the Dark Crystal manga shows them living in tents and caves, but the Creation Myths graphic novels give us brief-yet-tantalizing glimpses of Gelfing boats and huge cities on the seacoast, but beyond that, we don’t really know how far their civilization really advanced. Of course, it’s perfectly plausible that different Gelfling clans achieved varying levels of sophistication, but we’re left only to speculate.

Kira then sees a large stone chair, is fascinated by it, and sits on it. We’re never actually told this, but most fans generally believe that this was once the throne of the Gelfling queen. The Gelfling queen is an enormous question mark in Dark Crystal history. We know there was a Gelfling queen, and that she once united all the Gelfling clans. Beyond that, nothing. Who was she? How did she unite everyone? Was this unification successful? None of this info has ever been revealed. Many others have speculated that this shot of Kira sitting in the throne means she’s a direct descendant of the Gelfling queen, but that’s mere speculation. For all we know, it’s just a chair.

Jan calls Kira over to him, saying he’s found something. He’s found a carving on the wall, with an image shaped like the shard. Kira asks what the funny marks are, and Jen replies that it is writing, which he defines as, “words that stay.” Jen’s Mystic master taught him how to read, an education never available to Kira. See, critics, Jen is not useless. Jen then reads the prophecy: “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.” That “or else by none” part is interesting, because it doesn’t state for sure that a Gelfling will save the world, just that it might happen. As Aughra said earlier in the film, the Great Conjunction could save the world or destroy it, despite Jen’s presence.

This carving is the Wall of Destiny, and it’s a big deal. Imagery on the wall more or less tells the backstory, split into two halves. On one side of it we can see the castle, and the Urskeks standing around the crystal. This is followed by an image of the Skeksis. On the other half, there are images of the Mystics, and of the three suns meeting in the sky. Above this timeline, there’s an image of a Gelfling playing music, and another Gelfling offering a plant to one with a crown (the queen, perhaps?). The other side shows a similar scene, with a Gelfling offering a bowl to a female Gelfling with angelic wings, for a sly bit of foreshadowing. These images of Gelflings handing items to one another is supposed to symbolic of their dream-fasting.

A lot of fantasy stories with prophecies will skip over where the prophecy came from, usually just saying it’s “ancient.” The Dark Crystal tie-in fiction, however, fills us in on where the Wall of Destiny came from. The story goes that the Gelfings wanted to know if there was any hope of living free from fear of the Skeksis, so they lit the “fires of prophecy.” (Big Gelfling spiritual bonfires are established as a “thing” in Creation Myths.) Afterwards, seven groups of seven Gelflings each took refuge on hilltops, staring at the stars for answers. The canon then merely states, “their dreams were made stone,” which is where the Wall of Destiny comes from. Furthermore, the canon says electron microscope analyses of the wall shows that these images were carved not with tools, but with a process involving intense localized heat. This, presumably, is from the raw energy generated by whatever magic and/or mental power it took for the seven groups of Gelflings to be able to peer into the future.

Wait, what was that about an electron microscope? This question brings us to the weirdest, head-scratchingiest part of the entire Dark Crystal mythos. The Dark Crystal is often lauded for being an immersive fantasy world with no human characters. Now’s the part where I blow your mind: There is a human character, from Earth, in the Dark Crystal canon. His name is J.J. Llewellyn. To figure out who this is, let’s take another look at the book The World of the Dark Crystal. It’s a cool art book with a lot of photos and drawings from the movie. They could have stopped there, but, no. Instead, the book is “written by” a fictional character, J.J. Llewellen, who, we’re told, has examined these artifacts from the world Thra (where The Dark Crystal takes place) and the “Book of Aughra,” which outlines the history of Thra, its creatures, and the events of the film. Half of World of the Dark Crystal is direct quotes from Aughra’s writings, and half is from this Llewellyn character, and his interpretation of Aughra’s words and the many symbols and images from the movie. Consider it Dark Crystal advanced reading.

OK, so that’s where Llewellyn comes from, but who is Llewellyn? The only biographical information we get from him is merely “Oxford, 1981.” (The movie came out in 1982, but the World book wasn’t published until 2004.) Within the story, we’re left to extrapolate that someone from Earth (astronauts, maybe?) found Thra, and returned with these artifacts, mostly from Jen and Kira’s era. Llewellyn was then brought in to do the anthropologist thing, and interpret the artifacts, which includes the Wall of Destiny, so that the rest of us on Earth can learn the story of the Dark Crystal. If this happened in ’81, then it gets super-meta, leading to the movie in ’82. I’m deep into speculation on all this. Could Llewellyn be a real person, someone who worked with Brian Froud on the book? It’s possible, but his name doesn’t appear in any of the book’s fine print, and repeated online searches for “J.J. Llewellyn, Oxford” just take me right back to the book.

Once again, I’m only speculating here. Llewellyn doesn’t actually say any of this. Here’s an excerpt:  “For some time it has been common knowledge in thaumato-linguistic circles and among others who care for such things that a chance discovery of eroded rock carving at an anonymous site had been followed by a quite remarkable production of objects, texts, and diagrams, a few associated with the original find but most created during periods of meditation on the context of the carving, using advanced techniques of hypno-activity that have been largely developed from the study of the initial products.” Now imagine 130 pages of sentences like that, and you begin to get the idea of what it’s like to dig through World of the Dark Crystal for info.

The big question is, does knowing any of this meta stuff add to our enjoyment of the movie? I guess all this was done to explain how we on Earth know the story of The Dark Crystal. Therefore it adds to immersive nature of the film, so we don’t question things like if this is some other world, how do we even know about it? Consider the Muppets: In four of the Muppet films – The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, A Muppet Christmas Carol, and Muppet Treasure Island – there’s a meta layer to the proceedings, so that it’s not just a movie about the Muppets. Instead, the Muppets are real-world performers, and we’re watching a movie starring the Muppets. Similarly, thanks to this Llewellyn guy, the movie The Dark Crystal is not just a weird fantasy movie, but an adaptation of the “Book of Aughra” and related artifacts brought to Earth from another world.

Enough. Time to leave Earth behind and get back to the action on another world, which is why we love The Dark Crystal. Kira puts two and two together, and realizes that the shard is a piece of the Dark Crystal. Jen realizes it too, and he and Kira agree that he has to heal the Dark Crystal.

Next: Hitting the road.

****

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I freakin’ love The Dark Crystal! Let’s watch it! Today, our hero Jen hits his lowest point, 49:02-50:27 on the Blu-ray.

There’s a very lengthy shot of Jen and Kira running from the Garthim’s attack on the Podling, the idea being to let the audience know they’re covering a lot of distance. Jen run-falls down a small slope, and Kira stops him, saying “They won’t find us here.” Jen is in the dumps, saying, “It’s all my fault.” Kira is more pragmatic, taking stock of their situation, explaining to herself (and the audience) that the Skeksis saved them from his own Garthim. She’s clearly befuddled as to why the Skeksis would do this.

Jen is too busy having a full-on pity party. You can actually see real tears on his face as he says, “First Aughra’s, now your village.” He picks up the crystal shard, says he wishes he’d never heard of it, and then, unthinkably, he throws it away. That’s right, he just chucks it off deeper into the woods. Why does he do this? Is it out of character? We have to remember that the audience still knows a lot more about what’s happening than Jen does. The audience has seen the Dark Crystal and gotten a sense of its power. Jen, however, only knows that there’s something called the Dark Crystal, but that’s it. All Jen knows is that he was tasked with finding this shard, and the shard merely led him twice into the destructive path of the Garthim. So, strictly from his point of view, the shard is not something that heals, but an object of destruction. When Jen throws the shard away, it could be considered quitting. However, it could also be considered a heroic act, in that he’s rejecting the violence and negativity he believes it brings, choosing instead to find a newer, hopefully better path.

Kira says “No!” but that ends her argument. Perhaps she might have further argued her case for keeping the shard, but then she notices Jen’s arm is injured. We can assume this happened when a Garthim briefly grabbed him in the previous scene. She conveniently grabs some moss from the ground in front of them, placing it on his wound and saying it’ll make him feel better. The tone softens, perhaps even a little romantic, as Kira assures Jen that this wasn’t his fault, and that “The Garthim have always come.”

Those five words certainly say a lot, don’t they? Let’s see if I’ve got the timeline straight. The Skeksis created the Garthim to gather up all the Gelflings, so the emperor could drink all the Gelfling essence. This was the Gelfling genocide, which happened sometime after the Legends of the Dark Crystal manga, but before the events of the film. With no more Gelflings, or so the Skeksis believe, the Garthim have taken to snatching up Podlings. So Garthim raiding parties are an established “thing” in this world, happening on a regular basis. Why, then, did the Podlings in the movie seem surprised by their attack, and apparently didn’t have any defenses? The World of the Dark Crystal book and other tie-in media describes the Podlings – and the Gelflings, to a lesser extent – as living day-to-day, unconcerned with the “bigger picture” of the world around them. Another question is, why hasn’t this village been raided before? Well, Kira is believed to be of the Vapran clan, who were experts in camouflage, so if this village is in or near the Vapran wood, it might be well hidden from prying Garthim eyes, and the Garthim only found it this time because the Crystal Bats led them there in search of the Gelflings.

The passage of time: The shot fades to an image of the Mystics continuing their long journey, silhouetted against a gorgeous cloudscape. Like before, this is here to provide the sense of time passing, and of the Mystics (and the plot) making some forward progress.

I’ll end things here for now, because there’s a lot to say about what’s coming up.

Next: History, prophecy, and would you believe there actually is a human character in The Dark Crystal?!?

****

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