fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4040 ]

[ SECRET POST #4040 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4040 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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11. https://i.imgur.com/VCP4yWT.jpg

Hmmm. To me, the puppetry looks great, but to modern eyes it looks very dated as a special effect because it's puppetry.

The puppets might be good for puppets, but they are very creepy looking and have a very uncanny fake appearance. It could be that society is less willing to suspend disbelief for something that is clearly a clunky puppet than they were back then though.

I mean...the puppets were never really meant to fool the audience into thinking they were actual people. That wasn't the point. Henson's work with puppetry is and was its own thing - very well done, but it looks odd to modern audiences who aren't as used to this kind of puppetry special effects

Yeah, Henson's main goal was for it to look "Not puppet-y", which isn't necessarily the same as "real people". He wasn't even a ventriloquist or tried to be, people just naturally started to focus on Kermit when sitting side by side.

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(Anonymous) - 2018-01-26 05:11 (UTC) - Expand

I think Black Crystal and Labyrinth hit the limits of what Jim and Brian could do without going all in on RC rigs with a half-dozen operators. (I'm more kindly disposed to Labyrinth from a performance art perspective.)

Brian? Oh, Brian Froud?

Edited 2018-01-26 02:51 (UTC)

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liz_marcs - 2018-01-26 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

cbrachyrhynchos - 2018-01-26 03:16 (UTC) - Expand

I found the puppetry generally brilliant and novel and wonderfully *weird* - except is a damning strike against the storytelling that the *main characters* cannot facially emote.

I disagree. The puppets don't have the same range of emotion as a human face, but Kermit and Piggy can absolutely facially emote. The other characters are more hit or miss, but it can be done with thoughtful character design and a talented puppeteer.

If you meant they can't emote with their eyes, that's a different story.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2018-01-28 19:56 (UTC) - Expand

I'm actually old enough to have seen it in the theaters as a really wee one.

It's dated by today's standards.

But at the time it was released, it was absolutely breath-taking on the big screen. There had literally been nothing like it before. It pushed the technical boundaries of puppetry forward in a very big step (if not a leap). Henson Company was touting it as a big technological break-through for them.

In all seriousness, if you can find any contemporaneous reviews on the or behind-the-scenes featurettes on the Web, you'll see that it was a big honking deal.

Plus, without the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, you don't get Jim Henson's Creature Shop (which was specifically created to support the movies).

Without Creature Shop, you don't get Farscape.

So, yes, today Dark Crystal looks shabby, but it laid the groundwork for a shit-ton of what came after.

Now, get the hell out of my yard, yungun! /jk

I'd say the stilt-walkers likely changed the way FX people did creature performance. No one had any idea if that trick could be pulled off without breaking the performer's neck. Then 10 years later, you had Jurassic Park, which involved performers in suits for key scenes moving like a murder chicken rather than a human in a rubber suit.

I think it looks very cool. I always liked that movie, and the puppets reminded me a lot of Froud's fairy and goblin illustrations.

Froud designed the creatures, so that would be why...

OH! I had forgotten that. I haven't seen this movie in *so* long. I remember when we first found and bought Froud's 'Faeries' - my gods. SO in love with his art!

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(Anonymous) - 2018-01-26 03:25 (UTC) - Expand

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tabaqui - 2018-01-26 03:26 (UTC) - Expand

I don't really get how you can make puppets look any more life-like aside from replacing them with all live actors.

First of: SHUUNNN!

Second: What are your thoughts on the coming Netflix series?

Third: Maybe try the comics?

I love how this movie looks.

With Henson stuff, whether it's this or Labyrinth or Farscape or the Muppets, you have to go into it wanting to see puppets and accepting that the puppets will obviously be puppets. Using puppetry like this is a stylistic choice. It's not like CG where we expect it to look real and complain when it doesn't. After all, this was Henson's brainchild, so of course he was going to express his ideas through puppetry - not because it was the only feasible way to make the characters at the time but because puppets are what he did.

This is a most excellent point. <3

Yep, exactly.

On the other hand, I think Dark Crystal is beautiful and boring.

https://youtu.be/OGzVYyV_Jsg

Man, those skeksis freaked me out as a kid. Like in a good way, though. I was fascinated by them. And they were very real to me -- never once thought "eh, they're just puppets." But that's the cool thing about being a kid, I suppose!

A few years ago, I went to the Center for Puppetry Arts museum in Atlanta, Georgia. They have a lot of the characters and props from Jim Henson's projects. The Skeksis puppet is still creepy up close.

I shudder to think!

You're in luck! Sort of. Netflix Original series sometime this year. Prequel to the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Crystal:_Age_of_Resistance

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