Naturally, the characters, creatures, costumes and environments of The Dark Crystal come courtesy of The Jim Henson Company, and they’re an absolute joy to look at. I’m No Puppet, You’re the Puppet: For all of its narrative complexity and shockingly political core, however, nothing in Age of Resistance quite thrills like its presentation. The innate humanism and naturalism of Henson’s work (especially in the original) is served nicely with this 21st-century subtextual facelift. They’re few, but they are more powerful than their lithe frame belies they’ll have to tap into that power - and their connection to Thra itself - to free themselves from Skeksis rule. The Gelfling, meanwhile, are virtuous and kind, but divided by issues of caste and the propaganda that the Skeksis drill into their minds to keep them enslaved. After all, what are the Skeksis but greedy kleptocrats strip-mining the environment while gaslighting its citizens into believing it’s the right thing to do? And that doesn’t even touch the host of other races and creatures that populate Thra.Īmongst its high-fantasy trappings, though, Age of Resistance tells a highly political tale, one of class divisions and environmental strife and fake news and a host of other things that graft loosely onto our everyday concerns. The Stonewood are the working-class warriors the Vapra the intellectual elite the Dousan the outcasts, and so on. Not only do you have the interpersonal scheming of the nearly-dozen Skeksis that form the evil empire (voiced by luminaries like Jason Isaacs, Mark Hamill, and Simon Pegg), but there are seven different houses of Gelfling to contend with, each with their own matriarch (or “Maudra”) and particular set of skills and stereotypes. From a storytelling perspective alone, Age of Resistance manages to stack up quite nicely to your Games of Thrones and your Once Upon a Times after a dense infodump on the world of Thra, courtesy of “Myth Speaker” Sigourney Weaver, the tale of Thra unfolds in a fairly organic manner. It’s nothing short of a miracle, then, that Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, alongside showrunner Javier Grillo-Marxuach and producer Lisa Henson (daughter of Jim), have managed to infuse the world of Thra with so much life and vibrancy. As they fight to survive and rally the fragmented segments of Gelfling society together, the Skeksis themselves discover a new use for the Dark Crystal that might see the extermination of the Gelflings and the destruction of Thra itself. However, in this dystopian realm, sparks of resistance form, as three Gelfling - former castle guard Rian ( Taron Egerton), intellectually-curious princess Brea ( Anya Taylor-Joy) and the spiritually-minded Deet ( Nathalie Emmanuel) - learn different pieces of the puzzle that will lead to the Darkening of their land, and the Skeksis’ role in it. Having schemed their way to control over the planet, its many gentle races (including the brave, but innocent Gelfling), and the powerful crystal that ties all life to the planet together, the Skeksis squeeze Thra and its inhabitants for all the power they can muster, hoping to stave off death by any means necessary. The Pitch: Thousands of years (sorry, trines) before the barren, imbalanced Thra we see in Jim Henson’s 1982 classic The Dark Crystal, the alien world is a lush, vibrant wilderness, although still deep in the clawed grip of the evil, avian Skeksis.
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