Coming Soon! - Henson Co. planning Dark Crystal sequel
"The Jim Henson Company is planning to make a sequel to its 1982 fantasy classic The Dark Crystal (Collector's Edition Boxed Set
at Amazon.com), reports Variety.
Titled The Power of the Dark Crystal, the new movie is written by David Odell (The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Show) and Annette Duffy. No director is yet attached to the film which starts shooting this fall for a 2007 release. It will combine live-action animatronic characters with CG animation.
The story is set many years after the original, which was helmed by Frank Oz and Jim Henson. Original heroes Jen and Kira are now king and queen, and must fight to save their kingdom when the crystal is once again split.
The company is also developing an animated series, interactive games and other media as well."
I always liked the original movie. With the advent of high-end computer animation, this sequel hopefully will be less clunky looking.
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at Amazon.com), reports Variety.
Titled The Power of the Dark Crystal, the new movie is written by David Odell (The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Show) and Annette Duffy. No director is yet attached to the film which starts shooting this fall for a 2007 release. It will combine live-action animatronic characters with CG animation.
The story is set many years after the original, which was helmed by Frank Oz and Jim Henson. Original heroes Jen and Kira are now king and queen, and must fight to save their kingdom when the crystal is once again split.
The company is also developing an animated series, interactive games and other media as well."
I always liked the original movie. With the advent of high-end computer animation, this sequel hopefully will be less clunky looking.
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posted by Monkeyman @ 5/16/2005 Perm Link
2 Comments:
At 6:32 PM, June 03, 2005,
Anonymous said…
Clunky looking? What? There is nothing less than amazing vision and imagination in the Dark Crystal. That is what is missing from today's movies.... the passion to create something unbelievable with your own hands. CG, while cool, does not fit with what Jim Henson was all about. He was a creator that had unbelievable talents. The world is missing more visionaries like Jim Henson.
At 10:43 PM, June 03, 2005,
Monkeyman said…
I love anonymous posts. I didn't say anything about the artistic vision of Jim Henson, who I agree was a great storyteller and gifted artisan. I believe The Creature Shop (not sure if it is still a part of Jim Henson Productions...) is quite heavily invested in pursuing CG as well as traditional puppetry. I view CG as taking strong influences from the skillsets of puppetry and stopmotion.
I found 'The Dark Crystal' a very creative, original story, and a real artistic leap forward for puppeteering. I thought some of the puppetering in 'The Dark Crystal' was extremely good, and some of the Gelfling performances were a bit clunky looking (to me). Not due to the lack of effort, but because unfortunately all cinematographic wizardy will years later show cracks, as far as sophistication of methods is concerned. Look at the original 'King Kong' or even the first 3 'Star Wars' movies. They were great for their day technology-wise, but as time passes, can you honestly say now they are visually still as amazing? No. I'm not talking about story or originality of ideas here, but technology available to filmmakers and what can be done now. That has nothing to do with creativity, which I felt 'The Dark Crystal' had plenty of.
Of course you have the right to disagree with the term I used. CG can either be pretty bad (..ahem.. Final Fantasy... eek...), or really top notch (Finding Nemo, The Incredibles).
CG is simply a medium to create other worlds and allows for high degrees of nuance and subtlety of performance. The beauty of CG is up to the acting and palette of the worlds created by the craftsmanship of writers, skilled animators, modelers, texture artists, etc.
If you think CG is all whiz bang and no substance merely because it uses a computer as a medium, don't fool yourself. It takes as much skill to get great performances and designs with CG as with any traditional, real-world craft and calls on artisians with those skills to make it.
Speaking as an animator, I get to work on creating acting performances with my own hands (yes, I have to actually create the animation by hand by manipulating a digital marionette, the computer only puts out what an artist puts into it.) Think of it as a really big, expensive pencil, or like stop motion with the ability to tweak the work and save or add to it.
I continue to be amazed at what can be done with it as a means to an end, that end being creating memorable, compelling animated performances.
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