Netflix’s upcoming series “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,” a prequel to the Jim Henson classic puppet film “The Dark Crystal,” will reach the streaming service on August 30th of this year. And, in preparation for it, Netflix released a new trailer today that teases the story as a political fantasy.
The trailer looks amazing, and a must watch show even for those who have never seen the original film. And I’m torn as to whether or not you should. Because, even though the film is a classic, the show will be a prequel to it, so knowing the fate of certain characters might spoil quite a few details of the story. However, I’m willing to give the creators the benefit of the doubt on that topic, and will wait to see how they handle that aspect of the story before passing judgement. This trust is given in part because the Henson family is deeply involved in the project, and because, based on the trailer, they’ve appeared to have mastered the creation of a beautiful marriage between puppetry and CGI, which could only be done by somebody who has a deep affection for the original film and its legacy, as well as extraordinary talent.
All of this brought us back to the show’s Hall H panel that happened during the San Diego Comic Con this year, which that had one of the biggest surprises of the event.
Now very few people knew who or what to expect from that panel, but the show has a stellar voice cast, and at least Louis Leterrier, who directed all of the show’s episodes, along with Lisa Henson, Jim Henson’s daughter and the executive producer of the show, were expected to appear. However the appearance of Taron Egerton (Rocketman, the “Kingsman” series), who voices the character Rian, was something very few people saw coming and the crowd erupted in cheers.
Nonetheless, that was not the big surprise of the panel. Taron’s appearance was massively overshadowed when the next cast member was announced and walked out into the Hall, which was Luke Skywalker himself. There was a second of stunned disbelief after Mark Hamill was announced before the room exploded with joy. The legendary voice actor and Star Wars star is one of the undeniable Kings of the Con, and him coming out was one of the highlights of the whole event.
Mark, who voices the character of “The Scientist” in the new show, is a veteran of the con, and you could see him expertly handle the crowd, give out the right amount of information to make the show sound fascinating, and tease just enough about his past projects to induce delightful screams and applause from the crowd. It was really something to witness.
Lisa and Louis, along with the two actors, gave the audience more than enough information to make even the most skeptical individual feel at ease, and even feel excited over the upcoming show. The biggest included a promise of puppetry over CGI, with the latter being used only to enhance the former. And sharing their goal of being able to recreate exactly what was done in the original movie, then taking it to the next level.
To prove this point, they also released a video where they showed the audience the creation of the show, the sets, and the puppets. And a lot of us were blown away to find that some of the scenes previously shown of the trailer that we thought were CGI, were actually done with puppets after all.
Check out the breakdown of the full event on my podcast below!
Overall the show looks to be faithful to the original film’s content, and the creator’s appeared to be committed to using the art form of puppetry as the foundation for the show, using CGI only to enhance it. With a stellar voice cast to round up the already incredibly talented creative team, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance looks to be one of the must watch shows of the year.
