![]() But perhaps their enduring allure is also testament to the increasingly singular draw of puppetry. Maybe that’s because, for each generation of adults, there’s something particularly indelible about those cultural works that first gave us nightmares. The Dark Crystal (1982) and 1986’s Labyrinth were both nightmarish fantasy-adventures, set in warped fairy tale kingdoms, whose stature seems only to have grown in the collective memory ever since. ![]() Back in the 80s, The Muppets’ creator Jim Henson extended his talent for creating irrepressible creatures beyond that chirpy franchise and into two fantasy films that captured the imagination in a much less benign fashion. Have no doubt: that remake’s $1bn plus worldwide box office means this obsession with verisimilitude isn’t going to stop anytime soon.īut perhaps a fightback is brewing – and it’s coming from a man who died 29 years ago. But, while may people have expressed jubilant derision online at the sight of, say, The Lion King re-constituted as a wannabe nature documentary, with characters possessing the realistically non-expressive facial expressions of actual lions, the bottom line tells a very different story. In fancy terminology, it’s a phenomenon known as the ‘ uncanny valley’ – and it’s one audiences are increasingly having to endure, as animators, too, strive for the bafflingly self-defeating goal of making work that appears to be ‘live action’. ![]() Episodes No.The international incident that was the recent trailer for the upcoming big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, with its grotesque stitching together of human actors’ faces (and breasts) with ‘digital fur technology’, expressed a fundamental paradox when it comes to visual effects on screen: in desperately striving for realism, you often create something that is much more conspicuously unreal. Flexibility was further enhanced via the use of robotics embedded within many of the puppets to handle certain head and eye motions remotely, controlled using modified Nintendo Wii controllers. Even despite an expansive cast, efficiency also increased since 1982 with only two puppeteers required per-puppet, allowing for greater range of motion due to greater maneuverability. ![]() Wendy Froud, Brian Froud, and now for the first time their son Toby Froud all take part in the series, handling character design and 3D forms/textures respectively. Old and modern talent were incorporated into the prequel, with famous actors such as Mark Hamill coming in alongside the legacy Froud family who worked on the original film. Roughly 110 puppets, 20 main and 90 secondary, were specially made at the Henson Creature Shop and shipped to the United Kingdom for the series. The show carefully mirrors the 1982 The Dark Crystal insofar as the use of physical props and puppets are concerned, even with some backgrounds being handmade matte paintings, while CGI only melds together with the props primarily in long distance shots, to remove wires, and to obscure puppeteers. Cast CharacterĪttempts to begin development began as early as 2012, but stagnated until a successful pitch to Netflix, at which point filming commenced in the United Kingdom. When three Gelfling uncover the horrific truth behind the power of the Skeksis, an adventure unfolds as the fires of rebellion are lit, and an epic battle for the planet begins. But it is damaged, corrupted by the evil Skeksis, and a sickness spreads across the land. The Crystal of Truth is at the heart of Thra, a source of untold power.
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