Fans of ‘The Dark Crystal’ HAVE to Tune Into the Netflix Prequel Series
Netflix's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance debuts August 30, 2019.
The 10-episode streaming show is a prequel series leading up to the events of The Dark Crystal.
Voices for the main characters will be provided by Taron Egerton (Rocketman), Anya Taylor-Joy (Glass), Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones), and Victor Yerrid (Sid the Science Kid), who plays the Podling Hup.
If you were a certain kind of kid growing up in the '80s — say a proto-goth, or the type that would go on to devour all of the Lord of the Rings books and have a ton of blacklight posters hanging in her bedroom — Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal was your jam. Co-directed by Henson and Frank Oz (who was also the performer behind Yoda and Miss Piggy), The Dark Crystal had everything you could possibly want: fantasy creatures, cool puppet designs, a plucky hero and an even pluckier heroine, a positive message, and it was scary as hell. Now, you can re-connect with your inner pre-goth and introduce her to your children, because Netflix is launching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, a prequel series to the 1982 film.
The series will premiere on August 30, 2019.
The 10-episode series takes place on the planet of Thra, and it follows three Gelflings as they uncover a plot by the Skeksis to amass power, which leads them to start a rebellion. If you don't remember or haven't seen the original movie, that all sounds like nonsense. (And even if you have... ) But all you have to remember is that the Gelflings are the good guys who look like a cross between beautiful elves and woodland creatures, and the Skeksis are the bad guys who look like vultures and gave me nightmares when I was a kid.
The 'Dark Crystal' cast is stacked.
The voice cast includes Taron Egerton, who recently played Elton John in Rocketman; Anya Taylor-Joy, who is known for creepy movies like The Witch, Glass, and Thoroughbreds; and Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones. Together, they're a trio of Gelflings who head out for a big fantasy adventure.
The rest of the cast is filled out with actors like, oh, I don't know, almost every actor in existence, including Sigourney Weaver, Lena Headey, Awkwafina, Benedict Wong, Natalie Dormer, Theo James, Toby Jones, Mark Hamill, Helena Bonham Carter, Simon Pegg, Alicia Vikander, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Harvey Fierstein, Jason Isaacs, Andy Samberg, and Keegan-Michael Key.
There's plenty of talent behind-the-scenes, too. It's directed by Louis Leterrier, who's known for action movies like The Transporter and The Incredible Hulk. Original Henson collaborators Brian and Wendy Froud returned to do the visuals for the series. (Fun fact: Their son, Toby, was the baby from Labyrinth. He was not taken by a goblin king!) Even the get-stuck-in-your-head theme was composed by Daniel Pemberton, who did the music for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Dark Crystal promises to be a technological marvel — and also pretty dark.
As you can see in the above trailer, and Henson-style puppetry has sure come a long way since I was a kid. The advances have made the Dark Crystal characters feel all the more lifelike. "Every scene is teeming with life, from the smallest critters in the corners of the screen to the large, imposing monsters and machines," Gizmodo reports. "The characters aren’t just puppets, they’re living beings. Their ears twitch, their lungs expand, their bodies move and sway with the breeze."
But just because it looks beautiful, it doesn't mean everything will be sweetness and light. The story can get pretty dark. "It’s likely you’ll hear this called 'Game of Thrones for kids' or 'puppet Game of Thrones,'” Parade reports. That's pretty heavy for a kids' show!
Hup will be the breakout character that everyone will want as their own.
Before the show even premiered, there was already a fan-favorite character: Hup, a Podling (a.k.a a creature that lives in plants) with big dreams who gets paired with the Gelfling named Deet (Emmanuel).
Hup's charm comes mostly from performer Victor Yerrid, a puppeteer who has worked on shows like Sesame Street, Sid the Science Kid (he played Gerald and Mort), and Crank Yankers. He's also done voice performances for animated series like Word Party and Robot Chicken.
Though he's the secret sauce behind the beloved Hup, he's quick to say it was just the luck of getting a character with a great design: "You’re kind of gifted with that adorableness before you do anything at all,” Yerrid told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “His look, to me, is so sweet. He was designed in that way but my goal is always to pay off how the character is conceived or written by the show creators."
The resistance will take every warrior it can get. Will you join?
A post shared by The Dark Crystal: AOR (@darkcrystalofficial) on Aug 17, 2019 at 8:03am PDT
But part of the trick of Hup is that he doesn't speak in words that are recognizable to us: He speaks a Podling language (paired with some well-timed raspberries). It turns out, it's not just gibberish. "Joe Lee, who’s my hero in the podling world, he gave me and whoever ended up doing Podling characters that feature, a total road map for their world through this language," Yerrid says in that same interview. "Yeah, it’s got nouns and verbs and numbers. It’s great.”
Those who want to learn, well, you'll just have to study the show — there isn't a Podling dictionary for sale. But you can already pre-order Hup merchandise and action figures — and the wise will snap them up before Hup mania takes over the internet.
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