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The Dark Crystal
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1982 film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz
OverviewAI-generated
The Dark Crystal is a 1982 fantasy adventure film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, with a screenplay by Henson. Produced by Henson and Gary Kurtz, the movie features a cast including Lisa Maxwell, Billie Whitelaw, Steve Whitmire, and Barry Dennen. Joseph O'Conor serves as the narrator. The production involved Universal Pictures, ITC Entertainment, and The Jim Henson Company, with costume design by Brian Froud and photography by Oswald Morris.
The film has a runtime of 93 minutes and was originally released in English. It originated in the United Kingdom and the United States. Critical reception includes a rating of 7.1 from 77,280 votes on IMDb and an average vote of 7.138 from 1,250 votes on TMDb. The movie grossed $44,626,631 against a budget of $15,000,000. It is distributed by Universal Pictures and Netflix and is part of the Museum of Modern Art collection.
Synthesized by Vinony from 40 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, TMDb, IMDb, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film · TMDB
7.1On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world, before the grotesque race of Skeksis find and use the crystal for evil.
Cast
- Jim Henson as Jen / High Priest, Ritual Master
- Kathryn Mullen as Kira, a Gelfling
- Frank Oz as Aughra, a Keeper of Secrets / Chamberlain
- Dave Goelz as Fizzgig, a Friendly Monster / General, Garthim Master
- Steve Whitmire as Scientist (voice)
- Louise Gold as Gourmand
Themes
- race against time
- mission
- liberation
- castle
- villain
- mythical creature
- puppetry
- creature
- fantasy world
- crystal
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Key facts
- Directed by
- Jim Henson Frank Oz
- Screenplay by
- David Odell
- Story by
- Jim Henson
- Produced by
- Jim Henson Gary Kurtz
- Starring
- Stephen Garlick Lisa Maxwell Billie Whitelaw Percy Edwards
- Cinematography
- Oswald Morris
- Edited by
- Ralph Kemplen
- Music by
- Trevor Jones
- Production companies
- ITC Entertainment Henson Associates
- Distributed by
- Universal Pictures Associated Film Distribution (United States) United International Pictures (United Kingdom)
- Release dates
- December 13, 1982 ( 1982-12-13 ) (New York City) December 17, 1982 ( 1982-12-17 ) (United States) February 17, 1983 ( 1983-02-17 ) (United Kingdom)
- Running time
- 93 minutes
- Countries
- United States United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Budget
- $25 million or £25 million
- Box office
- $41.4 million
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- film
- Genre
- adventure film
- Country of origin
- United States
- Original language
- English language
- Collection
- Museum of Modern Art
- Director
- Frank Oz
- Screenwriter
- Jim Henson
- Composer
- Trevor Jones
- Producer
- Gary Kurtz
- Production company
- The Jim Henson Company
- Cinematographer
- Oswald Morris
- Duration
- 88
- FilmAffinity ID
- 458881
- Distribution format
- video on demand
- Official website
- www.darkcrystal.com
- Image
- On-Line Systems-06 -The Dark Crystal.jpg
Show 12 more facts
- topic's main category
- Category:The Dark Crystal
- publication date
- 1983-02-17
- Commons category
- The Dark Crystal
- film editor
- Ralph Kemplen
- title
- The Dark Crystal
- narrator
- Joseph O'Conor
- distributed by
- Netflix
- costume designer
- Brian Froud
- assessment
- Bechdel test
- set in environment
- fictional planet
- review score
- 6.6/10
- capital cost
- 25000000
Sources (15)
via Wikidata · CC0
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Dark Crystal is a 1982 dark fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, produced by Gary Kurtz and Henson, with a screenplay by David Odell based on a story conceived by Henson. The film was produced and financed by ITC Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company and distributed by Universal Pictures. It features the voices of Stephen Garlick, Lisa Maxwell, Billie Whitelaw, Percy Edwards, and Barry Dennen. Set on a fictional planet, the film revolves around Jen and Kira, two Gelflings on a quest to restore balance to the world of Thra and overthrow the evil, ruling Skeksis by restoring a powerful broken Crystal.
The film was promoted as the first major live-action motion picture without any human actors, featuring characters realized through groundbreaking animatronics created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Many creatures, such as the Gelflings, required as many as four puppeteers to achieve full movement and expression. In addition to directing, Henson and Oz also performed several characters alongside regular Muppets collaborators Kathryn Mullen, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, and Louise Gold. The primary concept artist was fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, famous for his distinctive fairy and dwarf designs; Froud later collaborated with Henson on his subsequent fantasy film Labyrinth (1986). The film score was composed by Trevor Jones.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “The Dark Crystal” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.