Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/05/22/i-can-not-wait-for-dark-crys.html
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I love what the Henson company did on Farscape. This will be equally amazing.
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Don’t get too attached to the Gelflings.
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Or they could imagine new concepts, but where’s the fun in that?
Remix, reuse, reboot, regurgitate!
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This isn’t a remix, a reboot, or a regurgitation.
It’s a new series exploring the world of the Gelflings, with Henson and Brian Froud collaborating.
I think it’s safe to say that a lot of fans are very excited.
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I acknowledge that a lot of fans are excited. And some aren’t. I’m a fan of the Dark Crystal. I don’t think it needs continuing and sadly it is indicative of the current state of narrative to reuse rather than create anew.
Sometimes it’s nice to explore and fill in the frayed edges of a created world for one’s self without having them rigidly defined 25 years after the fact.
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As long as Skeksis are in every episode I’ll be digging it.
Best part of the movie.
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This isn’t a continuation. It’s a prequel exploring the events beforehand. There’s been several excellent graphic novels that’ve explored the early life of Aughra as well. I think as long as the people who created this stuff think there’s more stories to tell I’m happy to hear them tell them.
The Henson folks are doing a lot of original stuff as well these days, such as Legend of Turkey Hollow and The Happytime Murders. I’m ok with them also doing stuff for the fans.
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Ditto on this.
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+1 - will be teh Aewsum! 
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And nobody will force those people to watch it, so why should they, or you, care in the least about it?
Yeah, no. Adapting and reusing and retelling existing narrative is not a new practice. Nor is it a creative failing. It is at the essence of how human beings tell stories. It’s what we do.
Do you recognize the names of Achilles and Odysseus and Agamemnon and Helen? I bet you do. I bet you’ve never read Homer in the original ancient Greek, though. You know those names because those characters are the subject of 3000 years of stories and plays and songs and sculptures and paintings and operas and television shows and graphic novels and video games, all of them retellings and reimaginings of a preexisting narrative. Tell me the one most iconic thing about the Trojan War. Did you say “the horse”? The horse is not in Homer’s Iliad. It’s in Virgil’s Aeneid. Recreations and retellings often offer outstanding and improved interpretations of a story, and they are worth listening to.
Ovid stole a Babylonian origin myth to write “Pyramus and Thisbe”. Boccaccio stole from Ovid for the Decameron. Masuccio Salernitano stole from Boccaccio to write the short story “Mariotto and Ganozza”. Luigi da Porto stole from Salernitano to write the novella “Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti”. Shakespeare stole from da Porto to write “Romeo and Juliet”. Shakespeare stole the ideas for pretty much every play he wrote, really. And I bet you’ve seen at least one version of Hamlet on a stage or in a theatre and it wasn’t the Globe in 1603. Because recreations and retellings often offer outstanding and improved interpretations of a story, and they are worth listening to.
If you actually believe that the 2005 reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” was not vastly superior in every possible way to the 1978 original, then you are delusional. If you believe that Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is not one of the most fascinating and compelling versions of that character, then you are delusional. Recreations and retellings often offer outstanding and improved interpretations of a story, and they are worth listening to.
The greatest writers have always taken stories that already exist and told them in new ways. This is not a failing. This is not some new deplorable trend of an unimaginative Hollywood. This is what the best story telling always does. Because this is what story telling is about. This is what we do. We take existing characters and ideas and plots and retell them to our own liking. We take stories we already know and tell them again in new ways, to new audiences, so that we can learn new things. Our stories change with us to reflect the changing societies they speak to. That’s what stories are for.
If you think that the universe of the Dark Crystal was only worth exploring for 93 minutes, then you are quite welcome to go ahead and not watch this new series. But many people will feel that this is a long overdue opportunity to revisit a fascinating and wonderful setting that deserves a new audience and new stories to be told. Because recreations and retellings often offer outstanding and improved interpretations of a story, and they are worth listening to.
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At long last it’ll be resolved how female Gelflings fold/hide their wings (sort’ve like this?)
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I have never seen the first one - is it worth it?
I am also a big fan of farscape - loved Labyrinth and even have the Avenue Q soundtrack (I’m not put off by puppets).
Will adults get any value out of this? Has the first aged well?
It remains a wonderful, beautiful, creeptastic Henson movie.
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If you believe that Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is not one of the most fascinating and compelling versions of that character, then you are delusional.
Hey cool! Turns out I’m delusional. Thanks mister.
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It’s aged extremely well; one might say it was well ahead of its time. It’s a movie for grownups as well as kids. Highly recommended for anyone who likes fantasy, puppetry, and handmade weird creepy art.
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Oh great, spoilers!
Also I may have let out a tiny squee of delight before doing a terrible Skeksis chamberlain impression.
I expect the final episode to pull a Rogue One and climax with a giant battle in which a bunch of selfless Gelfling Rebels die in the process of delivering the Crystal Shard to Aughra.
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And the Garthim are the Death Troopers?
