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THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE
You Absolute MuppetThe Dark Crystal, that broke the mould then, so
let’s break it again and bring puppetry as far
as it can get’, and that’s really what we did. We
were each other’s best friend and worst enemy.
I saw the puppets every morning and was like
‘argh, puppets’ and they were like ‘argh, Louis’.”
He cites Jim Henson, “the greatest puppeteer,
but also the greatest innovator,” as his
inspiration to push Age Of Resistance to be as
good as possible. “In every scene at least I want
to do something that has never been done with
a puppet. I was coming up with some ideas and
concepts, doodles for how the puppets could
do these things. I want to see a puppet swim, I
want to see a puppet crashing through water,
I want to see it run, I want to see it jump!” And
he succeeded – we got a sneak peek at a team
of puppeteers surrounding a puppet suspended
on a rig, moving his arms and legs to simulate
breaststroke while a giant fan gave the puppet’s
hair and costume the appearance of moving
through water. Trust us, you’ve never put as
much thought into how your limbs move when
you swim as these puppeteers have.
There are inevitable hard limitations when
it comes to working with puppets, but Leterrier
was determined to find as many ways round
them as possible, and wanted to make the series
feel dynamic and fast-paced, not terms that are
generally associated with puppets. He operates
a Steadicam personally on set, and uses it to
maximise the movements of the puppets. “I
was like ‘I know it’s hard for you guys, because
there’s three of you plus monitors plus cables,
to run around, it’s exhausting, but let me run
around you with the Steadicam’... let’s move the
stool, not the piano.” He says the end result was
“everybody was running around, everybody
was exhausted and sweaty, but it made for
better and bigger movements.”
All aspects of the show’s production were
challenged to think of it as being more than
‘a puppet show’ – even from the very
early scripting stage, the show had to be
treated seriously. “When we looked at
the show we realised that we can’t just
lean on the idea that this is a visually
interesting world or the whimsicality
or whatever – this has to be a
drama, and it has to work as a
drama,” Grillo-Marxuach says.
His co-writer Jeff Addiss
adds: “[W]hen you start you
completely disregard that
they are puppets and you say
‘what do these two people in
this room want?’ And we’ve
actually been very lucky when
we got on set and started
filming to discover that you
can have two people in a room
talking about their feelings and it
works.” The other key thing that the
writers learned early into filming is
that “the Skeksis play,” Addiss says.
“They just work, they’re such beautiful
designs, they’re such fun, they’re so clear in who they are and what they want that really they’re so
fun to write for.”
The writing, design and puppeteering was crucial to the characterisation, but the final piece of the
puzzle was the voice actors – and Age Of Resistance has put together one of the starriest voice casts
in recent memory. Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy and Nathalie Emmanuel play Rian, Brea and Deet,
the three Gelfling who stumble across the dark secret behind the Skeksis’ power, and the rest of the
cast includes such big names as Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Isaacs, Alicia Vikander, Sigourney
Weaver, Mark Hamill, Mark Strong, Simon Pegg and Andy Samberg. Rather than in animation,
where the voice work is recorded ahead of the animation, here the voices are slotted in after filming.
Nathalie Emmanuel tells us that posed a unique challenge, “because the puppeteer has dictated
most of the performance and how the character expresses itself, they’re the heart of that, really. The
job of the voice actor is to apply your performance to what they’ve already done, which is really
challenging, especially when everyone has their own way of speaking, different accents and those
accents can affect how fast you speak.” Getting her voice to sync up with Deet’s mouth was an often
frustrating challenge.
Emmanuel didn’t get a chance to visit the set and ‘meet’ Deet, nor did she get to speak to Deet’s
puppeteer Beccy Henderson ahead of performing Deet’s voice, something which she tells us she
regrets, but adds that watching Henderson’s performance told her everything she needed to know
about Deet, who she calls “the loveliest, sweetest Gelfling you’ll ever meet”. She explains that she took
her cues from the tone of the writing, and the style of Leterrier’s directing. “I think the performances
of the puppets, and then the actors, were very modern and very naturalistic, in a way. Often with
puppets it can feel a little pantomimey, you know...? I think they’ve done a really good job of staying
true to the original piece but also evolving it to a much more modern pace.”
The creature workshop team were keen to keep the puppets as faithful to the original film as
possible, but modern technology does come into play, with CGI being used to augment the world of
Thra and give it more scope than could ever be achieved simply with sets. Leterrier tells us that CGI is
also used on the puppets – but sparingly. “We just enhance the eyes, a quiver of the mouth, the eyes
fluttering a little bit, glossing over,” Leterrier says. “But it’s still the glass eye of the puppet, it’s still the
skin of the puppet, we move it just slightly, and that made a huge difference. The limits I set were that
it cannot be better than what you could do with an amazing animatronic puppet with lots of motors
and stuff.” But he’s quick to assure us that not everything you see on screen is CG – the vast majority
of the magic is down to great puppet design and talented puppeteering. “We had this genius
puppeteer [Alice Dinnean] who plays Brea, and Brea is 100% real,” Leterrier says “There’s nothing we
did to her. And you’ll see her performance is absolutely incredible. And she does it all by herself.”
The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance wears its respect and nostalgia for the original film on its
sleeve, but it isn’t just fan service. The writers assure us that the TV show is for everyone, regardless
of whether they loved the original film, or if they’ve just confused it with Labyrinth. But one area in
which it will definitely echo the film is in terrifying a whole generation of kids. After all, as writer Will
Matthews points out, “it’s not The Happy Crystal, it’s The Dark Crystal.”The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance is released on Netflix on 30 August 2019.
The amount of craft
involved is staggering.