The Dark Crystal
The fist thing I noticed about this movie was the extreme attention to sets. It was also the second, third and fourth things. All I could think of was the all the hours of work that went into sculpting the breathtaking scenery. The most amazing thing happened as I was lighting my favorite Zippo - the Skeksis were standing around the crystal and it looked at one point like my flame was lighting them on the screen.
By the time the main character (who I will refer to as Stick Boy) appears I was completely lost as to what the plot of this beautiful moving painting was. When Stick Boy finaly does appear on camera its just such as shock because he isn't like anything else I had seen. This could have been done on purpose to emphasize the fact that he was an orphan raised by these Buddhit-monk-wanna-bes. We decided he looked too much like Freddy Mucury to be taken seriously anyway. When the old master dies at the same time as the Skeksi's emperor the little kiddies get a neat llesson in the concept of balance in the universe. This is made even more obvious through the entire film.
The trial by stone was an incredible spectacle. It seemed like something Klingons might do if they weren't more into bloodshed. Since I was thinking of this as a sort of kid's kung-fu movie, I wasn't really all that surprised when the stone was loped off dramaticaly. I started telling my sober friend about how that was a huge display of Chi, but I don't think he was interested.
I grew very attached to the cute little anime elf girl and was horrified when she was going to have her essence drained.
Again my gamer brain was working overtime to try and fit this movie into a D&D mold, but like any Jim Henson creation, the mold just keeps breaking. In general this is a great movie, but the mood of the night was a little off, so I may have to try this one again.
Grade: B
A good flick, but a bad night.