[in high-pitched voice]: James, you (you) said you were going to make a "Teachers Part II" I didn't subscribe to fake news. I know. I know, I know, I know. Don't worry, i'll do that next video - but right now were doing this. So my friend YourMovieSucks (great channel, over half a million subs) asked me and a bunch of other YouTubers if we could talk about a movie that scared us as a kid. Now, growing up I wasn't allowed to watch scary movies. I remember one time my parents were watching a movie downstairs and I went down to see what all the noises were about and my mom said, “Oh no, honey, you can't watch this, it's too scary.” And then years later I learned that the movie they were watching was “Jurassic Park”. I think I could have handled it, MOM. I don't know if you could tell by the length of this video but it's going to be pretty different than the videos that I usually post But I think it's good to try out new things and hopefully we’ll all have a fun time listening to me talk about this movie because, folks, I'm excited to share with you the movie that traumatized me most as a kid and that movie is… drumroll please… (Slappin' noises) iiiiiiiiiissssssssssyoualreadyreadthetitle… (?) “The Dark Crystal”. [ahem] Okay, so The Dark Crystal came out in 1982, 14 years before I was even born. This movie was made for a whole different generation of people, but somehow I still saw it. I don't remember how I saw it, my family didn't own it on VHS, and I forget how old I was exactly but let's say, for the sake of this video, I saw this movie when I was… 17. Because that's legally still a child. This movie was directed by Frank Oz and freaking Jim Henson. Jim Henson is the creator of–I don't know if you've heard of this but– The Muppets? You might have seen them before? There's no denying that Jim Henson was a very talented man when it came to puppets and the work he did on The Dark Crystal is amazing. As much as I'm about to talk this movie down, it's honestly a work of art. The most enjoyment I got rewatching it was just the artistic appreciation of the character design, the scenery, the costumes, and most importantly, the puppetry. Some of the puppetry was amazing. Like, like this shot. How'd they do that without CGI? And did I mention that there's no people in this film? Except for full body shots, then they just used a real person dressed up and had them not face the camera. But as I rewatched The Dark Crystal I realized that the movie was... kind of garbage. So instead of talking about the parts of the movie that scared me as a child I'm going to be talking about why this movie was pretty bad. So now this video just turned into one of those bad movie review videos but honestly I like watching other people talk about bad movies like “The Room” and “Birdemic” and… what was that other one? I can't quite put my paw on it… (HIEVERYBODYIT'SMECOOLCAT) For this video I ended up doing some research–something I don't normally do for videos– and oh man, is this rabbit hole deep. Jim Henson had a bunch of ideas for the world of The Dark Crystal but wasn't able to fit all of his ideas into 90 minutes of film. And because he didn't explain the rules of the world well enough, the movie suffered. It felt unfinished and unstarted. Basically, the movie didn't leave you wanting more. It just left you thinking… “Wait, what?” Some of you might be thinking “Well, James, it’s just a kid’s movie. Kids are dumb. Why are you analyzing a kid’s–” SHSHSSHSHSSHSSHjust shut up. SSHShutup! Shuddup! Brian Froud, one of the head artists of the movie, even said that “When we finished the film we knew that we had only seen a fragment of this other world.” Bad fragment, I guess. So even the creators of this movie felt that they left out a lot of stuff. So in 2012, a three-part comic book was published to be as a prequel to the movie and I bought and read all three of them. And I will say that they did do a better job explaining the world that Jim Henson had in mind but you shouldn't have to read a book before you see a movie. Especially since the books weren't available until AFTER the movie came out! In the movie, stuff happens for no reason. Like in one scene, the main character– This is Jen, the main character, by the way. Get used to looking at this guy’s face. I've done so much digging and research into this world that I'm completely desensitized by how weird this puppet looks. If you think this puppet looks creepy, you should have seen some of his earlier designs. Just be thankful THIS is what you ended up with. So in this scene, Jen is trying to pick out which of the crystal shards is the right one that he needs for his quest and what does he do to find the right one? That's right, he plays his flute and then the right shard he needed just glows! Wouldn't you do that too if you were in the same situation? This movie doesn't explain WHY the crystal likes this music, it doesn't come up later. It just HAPPENS. That's basically this whole movie: Things Happening Slowly. So here we go, children. Hold my hand as I take you on a magical journey–but not too magical that it doesn't make sense– that is “The Dark Crystal”. [eeire and dramatic music] [rabid screeching] THE PLOT. It starts with a narrator telling us that there's this world and that it's dying. By the way, this world is named “Thra”. They don't mention it once in the movie but in the prequels and in the Wikipedia article, they all called it Thra. Okay. Thra is dying because this one crystal (this one) cracked. How? I dunno. I mean, I do know because I read the prequels but this movie doesn't tell us. Are you still with me? Good, we’re not even a minute in. Because this crystal cracked, two new species were born. The cruel Skeksis--the bad guys and the gentle Mystics--the good guys, And both species are dying. Now I'm no biologist, but I think they're probably dying because there's no women. That would, that would wipe out a species pretty quickly, I'd think. Instead of having women, the Skeksis use the crystal to make them young again. Maybe. It's either the crystal or the sun. NARRATOR: So do they learn to draw new life from the sun. Okay, so then what do you need the crystal for? Now we see the good creatures, the Mystics and with the Mystics lives another creature called a “gelfling”. It's like an elfing but with a G. You may remember him from earlier. He’s naked now, but meet your protagonist, Jen. This movie makes up so many words, jus-just try and keep up. NARRATOR: And a journey must begin. The journey of Jen. Okay, that’s a little pretentious, movie. Alright? Let’s tone it down a little. Then we see that the emperor Skeksis is dying, oh no, and then we get the second scariest scene in the whole movie. [rabid screeching from earlier] Yeah, we’re not even 15 minutes in, and we’re at the part that gave me nightmares. Then the Mystic that’s basically Jen’s dad is also dying and he tells Jen that he needs to find the cracked piece of the crystal–the shard– and then he just needs to plop that sucker back in the crystal where it belongs and then BOOM! BOOM! The world is saved. Again, they don't explain WHY doing this would save the world. Like, they could've at least tried to make something up like once the crystal is fixed, women will appear? Jen's dad tells him to… JEN’S DAD: Follow the greater sun for a day to the home of Aughra. Now I'm no astronomer, but I think following the sun for a day would just make you go in a circle. “What am I supposed to do when it's noon?!” Now the Skeksis, they're like “Oh, well dang it guys, who's going to be our new emperor?” This Skeksis named “Chamberlain”– CHAMBERLAIN: It's time to make… my MOVE. who is my second favorite character in this whole movie–thinks that he should be emperor. I mean, who wouldn't want to be emperor of, like, eight other bird monsters? The way that you can remember that this Skeksis is Chamberlain is that every time he's on camera he says this. CHAMBERLAIN: MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmMMMMMM mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmMMMMMmmmm mmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm MMMMMMMmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMmmmmmMMMMMM mmmmmMMMMMmmmmm JAMES: “Hey man, you can't be emperor!” said the Skeksis. “Oh yeah? Fight me for it!” replied Chamberlain. Since these two are puppets and don't have lower bodies they can't actually fight each other, which is super disappointing so instead the two have a competition to see who can hit a rock the hardest because that’s how you tell who's fit to lead. You can't have someone be your emperor when they can't even hit a rock that hard! Anyway, Chamberlain loses and all the other Skeksis banish him and rip up his clothes. [shrill horrific screaming] Okay, now hold on. Do you see what's funny about this screenshot? This Skeksis is wearing glasses, meaning in this universe, optometrists exist and this Skeksis had to go through an eye exam to get his prescription. “Do you like number one?” [click] “Or number two?” [click] [Skeksis exhales] Boi Does anyone else think that's funny? No? Alright. Anyway, after the Skeksis banished Chamberlain, they see in the crystal that there's this gelfling just walking around. Man, I didn't know the crystal could snitch like that. So they sent out these crab monsters to get him and by the way, those crab monsters are called “garthims” and they're created by this handsome Skeksis. You'd know that if you read the Wikipedia article. Anyway, back to Jen, what’s he up to? JEN: I'm not ready to go alone… [long and awkward pause] Alright. Alone then. TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH! Jen is supposed to follow the sun to Aughr-Aughra’s house? …Aughra’s? He runs into her and she's this old hag who tells him that the three suns are going to line up soon and when that happens, the world might end. Or it will begin. She doesn't know. [whispers] I know because I've already seen this movie. She also for some reason has a box of crystals. One of them is the shard that Jen is looking for but she doesn't know which. [dumps crystals on floor for no reason] JEN: Which one is it? AUGHRA: …Don't know. So Jen narrows down the box of crystals to three shards. JEN: It's one of these three, I’m sure. PFFT, WHAT!? NO! You've never seen the Dark Crystal! How do you know it's one of those– Whatever, okay? I can roll with this. Then, if you remember, Jen gets the idea to play his flute at the shard and the correct shard just GLOWS for some reason. Why does the crystal react to flute music? That's not a thing! Crystals don't have ears! Now when you create a fantasy world, you can't explain everything. Sometimes the answer is just “Oh, it's magic.” In “Frozen”, they don't explain how Elsa got her ice powers. She was just born with it, okay? It's MAGIC! And the audience is all okay with it as long as they don't take it too far but this movie just tries to pull off so much stuff that doesn't make sense. There's a line and this movie crosses it multiple times. Then the crab people attack Aughra’s house, Jen escapes with the shard, BOOM, next day. Okay, I know I've been talking bad about this movie but the amount of detail in this forest scene is pretty amazing. I mean, it's not doing anything to drive the plot forward but I just think it's cool to look at. Anyway, back to review mode. Jen falls in the mud, what an idiot, and then he meets up with a… Oh–oh GEEZ THAT’S A– THAT’S A GIRL!!!!!! THATSAGIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So there's a girl gelfling now, her name is Kira. LIGHT YAGAMI: I'll take a potato chip… …and EAT IT! She's speaking gibberish. [Kira speaking gibberish] And then for some unexplained, unimportant reason when they touch hands, they share memories. I mean, I don't know exactly what happens when you touch hands with another woman. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think that's supposed to happen. JEN: What's happening? KIRA: We’re dream-fasting. Sharing our memories. JEN: [chuckles] I'm having a bath. Okay, three things. First, this seems like a plot devicey way to just throw in some backstory, but whatever. Second, Jen, you just found out that you're not the last of your species and when you realize that you're sharing memories with her you decide to show this person you just met YOU HAVING A BATH. I mean, I guess she did show you her mom dying so, let's just get all that personal stuff out of the way. And third, somewhere on Earth, there exists a baby naked Jen puppet. And I NEED to have it. Then we're introduced to my third favorite character, Kira’s dog, Fizzgig. He doesn't really add anything to the story, he was just that lovable pet/side character. [Fizzgig growly screaming noise] Hey, that's a lot like my dog. JAMES: Hey Poppy! [Dog growly screaming noise] Also, Kira can talk to animals. KIRA: Hofyo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Okay. Then we're treated to this really great scene: a whole two minutes of the Skeksis eating. But honestly, though, I kind of love this scene. It does a great job creeping me out. Okay, it does go on for a minute too long, but bear with me here. The Skeksis’ clothing and silverware are Victorian so it gives off a haunted mansion sort of vibe and just the character design and the way the Skeksis are eating, it just comes off as unnerving. A lot of movies’ scary parts are jump scares or gore, at least I think they do that, I'm not allowed to watch scary movies. But this is such a different way to unease an audience. It kinda reminds me of the first half of a “Don't Hug Me I'm Scared” video. Nothing necessarily scary is happening, but it's still able to make the audience feel uncomfortable. [burp] Basically, the whole point of this scene was that the crab people were like “Hey, we got this old hag but we didn't get the gelfling.” And then the Skeksis were like, “WOW, okay, uh, release the crystal bats!” SKEKSIS: Crystal bats, fly! Search the land, search the water, search the sky! Okay, this might be nitpicking, and I'm no gelfling expert but I think you can rule out searching the sky. I don't see too many gelfings just flying around. So one of the bats finds Jen and Kira, they go back to Kira's village, Jen doesn't even know where he's supposed to take the shard, his dad never told him what to do after he got the shard. He tells Kira about his quest and what Aughra told him. JEN: You know the three suns in the sky? They’re going to come together soon. It's called the Great… The Great Something or other. See, even Jen doesn't remember these made up names. Really would’ve been convenient if you told her this information when you were sharing memories. So then the crab monsters show up and basically murder and capture Kira’s whole family, yeah, it was pretty traumatizing. And right when the crab monsters were about to attack Jen and Kira, Chamberlain comes out of nowhere, remember the “MMMmmmm” guy? CHAMBERLAIN: MMMMMMMmmmmmmm He steps in between them and stops the attack and Kira and Jen escape because Chamberlain saved them. Oh, and then Jen throws away the shard. BOOM! Next day. Kira finds the shard that Jen threw and then the two find some hieroglyphics about a prophecy. It says a gelfling is going to save the world and kill all the Skeksis, it doesn't matter, and then– OH! Chamberlain shows up. Hey, Chamberlain! JAMES: “Hey guys, I'm sorry for killing your entire species, we just didn't want the prophecy to come to fruition. You understand, right?” “So what if we all go to the castle together, we can eat some food and just have a gay ol’ time and talk this whole thing over, what do you think?” And then he says “please” a lot. CHAMBERLAIN: Please? CHAMBERLAIN: Please? Please? CHAMBERLAIN: Please? Please? Please? CHAMBERLAIN: Please? Please? Please? Please. CHAMBERLAIN: Please? Please? Please? Please. Please. CHAMBERLAIN: Please? Please? Please? Please. Please. Yes. CHAMBERLAIN: Please? Please? Please? Please. Please. Yes. Please? Now how can you say no to this lovable guy? He just got kicked out of the Skeksis club, he’s all alone, he just saved you from some crab monsters, and he did say “please” a lot. I'm just saying, if I was Jen, I totally would've trusted Chamberlain a hundred percent. But instead, Jen just stares at him blankly and then Kira ruins everything and tells Jen not to trust him, and then they run away. CHAMBERLAIN: WAIT! PLEASE MAKE PEACE! Eh, might’ve been the right call. So then for some reason, Kira knows where the castle is and since she can talk to animals she calls up these things called “land striders”. KIRA: BBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR (They're just a person walking on four stilts.) And they ride the land striders all the way to the castle. I have a lot of problems with this next scene. So one of the Skeksis takes a podling that they just captured, locks it into a chair, and tells the podling that they're going to suck its essence away and make it a slave. SKEKSIS: This won't hurt. We just want to drain your LIVING ESSENCE. (dude wtf) Then you can be the same the other podlings here. A SLAVE. You know, the podlings don't speak English. They speak a whole different language. [Podlings speaking gibberish] This Skeksis is just, just talking gibberish to this guy while he's just locked in a chair like “WHAT’S GOING ON?” Like, none of what you're saying is going through his guy’s head. And so only the emperor can drink the essence and that will make him stay young forever. So, what do you need the sun for? And also, what killed the last Skeksis? Looked like old age to me. Yeah that's cool and all but… (Epilepsy/Seizure Warning) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA We get THE MOST TERRIFYING SCENE IN THE WHOLE MOVIE. That's right, this is the winner! You gave me the most nightmares, scene! You win a million dollars! CONGRATULATIONS, SCENE! I can go on for hours about how this part of the movie gave me nightmares but honestly, it speaks for itself. I think what made it worse was that the podling was tied down to the chair and he was just so helpless and his whole FACE melted off and just… AUGH!!!! But now that I'm older, all I can think is… What do you guys need slaves for? So far, the only thing slaves have done was pull on a rope to make some swords appear out of the ground and bring you guys a plate of food. Why is there such a high demand for slaves that you need to make new ones? What do you guys even do all day? Then Kira and Jen arrive at the castle, they see the crab people taking in the pod people from Kira's village, they try and save the podlings but completely fail, the land striders die immediately, [horrific squeal] Jen and Kira open the cage that the podlings were in and then the two get cornered and what are they going to do, you ask? Well, isn't it obvious? They're going to jump and slowly float down to safety because Kira has WINGS! Didn't know redbull existed in this universe PFFTpfft That never came up in the memory sharing bit! So I guess when the Skeksis told the crystal bats to search for the gelflings in the sky SKEKSIS: SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY they weren't that far off. JAMES: “Hey, Kira, sorry we left your whole family back there, we totally didn't save them, like at all. They're probably going to get turned into slaves now.” Okay, we're almost done, everyone, we’re getting to climax town. Jen and Kira sneak into the castle. Chamberlain’s there, he basically murders Jen. And since he captured a gelfling, he's not an outcast anymore. You guys should've just went with him the first time. Now two land striders are dead. Kira goes into the slave room and as a kid I was already so traumatized the first time seeing a podling get turned into a slave and now seeing Kira getting her essence taken away I lost my mind. OH SHOOT! KIRA’S GETTING TURNED INTO A SLAVE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Luckily, remember the old hag, Aughra? She's like “Yo, you can talk to animals, just, just ask them to help you.” “Oh, okay.” KIRA: KAMA-LE- KIRA: KAMA-LE-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA She breaks free and the animals push the Skeksis that was in the room down this pit, and that kills him. Leading up to this point, it's hinted that the Skeksis and the Mystics are, like, connected. When something happens to a Skeksis, there's a Mystic counterpart that experiences the same thing. So when this Skeksis died, there was a Mystic just walking around that just… [pop] And then none of the other Mystics react. “Yeah, it happens.” Then we see that the Mystics can control the crab monsters. I'm guessing it's because they're connected to the Skeksis who also can control the crab monsters. So having a Mystic go with Jen on his journey in the first place would've been super helpful back when Kira's village was getting raided. All right, let's just wrap this up. Fizzgig dies, Jen's not really dead, he finds the Dark Crystal. He jumps to it and then drops the shard. Kira has to throw the shard backed to Jen but while she's doing that she gets MURDERED. I said spoiler warning, right? And then Jen plops that sucker back into the crystal JEN: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA The castle crumbles around everyone and the world is saved. But first the Skeksis and the Mystics walk into each other because they're connected, remember? They become one again, and… Are you ready for this? They walk into each other… and they turn into tree aliens. I'm not even joking. According to the prequels, these things are actually aliens. This is what the whole movie has been building up to! The bad guys are just one half of a schizophrenic alien tree person and if you read the prequels you'd know that! Is this supposed to be a “PLOT TWIST”? Because to me, it just seems like the plot is doing whatever it wants! So much weird unexplained stuff has already happened in this movie so at this point, I don't even care. By the way, Kira and Fizzgig don't actually die. This is a kids movie, after all. And then the world is saved even though there’s only like three people who inhabit it now. THE END. [groans] So that was the movie. Wanna know something funny? I've already used more words in this video than there were words in the entire movie. Also, I need to ask: Jen was supposedly the “chosen one”. NARRATOR: At this time… Jen… is the chosen one. But I would make the argument even that Kira should've been the chosen one. Let me go down my list. She saved Jen from the mud. She sniped a crystal bat out of the sky. When the crab monsters attacked, she had to tell Jen to run. She found the shard on the ground after Jen threw it. She tells Jen not to trust Chamberlain. She knew where the castle was and that the land striders would take them there. She used her wings to float Jen down to safety. She was able to get out of being turned into a slave by herself. And she threw the shard back to Jen after his butterfingers dropped it. And how does she get rewarded? By getting stabbed. All Jen did was play his flute at a magic rock! This guy’s a doofus! Who chose Jen to be the chosen one? BAD CHOICE! Now, I've said who my second and third favorite character in this movie is but who's my favorite character? There’s only like three other characters to choose from so who could it be? Hmm… Well, ladies and gentlemen, my favorite character… isn't in this movie. My favorite character of the Dark Crystal universe is Raunip, Aughra’s son. Okay, I know I just finished the movie, but let me talk about the prequel comics for a minute. Remember Aughra, the old lady? Well, turns out she's an immortal being and has been around since the creation of this world. Alright. And one day a meteor hits the planet and she, like anyone else would do, gives life to it, and out pops Raunip. And he's basically the main character of the prequel books and is also technically an alien. I like him because he's the only one who questions what’s going on. He asks the same questions I'm asking. So he's my favorite, he's the only character I ever wanted to cosplay. If they ever make the prequels into a movie, I call dibs on playing Raunip. That's how it works, I call dibs on playing this character. I just show up to auditions and I’m like “Uh, I actually called dibs so…” Also, in the second book, Aughra and her son are having a moment and Raunip says, “Will you remember me, Mother? After all the harm I've caused?” “I hope you die you worthless piece of sh-” HMPH! WELL! You didn't really seem to remember him in the movie! Also, if there's any producers watching, that was my audition just now to play Raunip. Would I recommend you watch The Dark Crystal? Well, I did just spoil the whole thing so, no, it would be a waste of time at this point but if I was talking to someone who hasn't watched this video then yeah, I would recommend it. Even with all of its flaws, I still think it's a creative film and I don't know, maybe it'd be fun to talk about it afterwards. Maybe I was desensitized doing all this research but I also enjoyed the prequel comic books. After all, my favorite character’s in there. There's also a manga that was made, “Legends of the Dark Crystal” and it's supposed to take place in between these books and the movie so these books don't even bridge the gap between the start of the… theit's leavesssstill on a cliffhanger. These books still leave on a cliffhanger. Speaking of manga, there were plans to make a sequel to The Dark Crystal, another movie, but the film ended up getting canceled. But a 12-part comic series is being produced by BOOM! Studios and it's not even completed yet, they're only on, like, the second installment. This is recent, you guys! So now is a great time to get into the Dark Crystal fandom. Like I said, I think The Dark Crystal is a creative story, Jim Henson really bit off more than he can chew making this movie, but seeing how many comics have been made to tell this story maybe The Dark Crystal is told better through comics and not with the limitations of puppets from the 80s. Anyway, that's just what I thought about the movie. If you're hearing this then that means you made it! (good job) This video as of right now is the longest video on this channel
[and some really nice people captioned all of it :’-)] I hope I was able to keep you entertained for such a long time. Be sure to check out all the other YouTubers who participated in this collab thing. I don't know why I agreed to do this. How do you guys make such long videos and not hate yourself? Just making this video took a part of my soul. I'm recording this end card after I finished editing it all and I'm just leaning on the wall of my closet. I just, I just wanted to be done. I need to thank my friend GingerPale who just went above and beyond and colored a lot of the pictures so that's why some of the pictures looked better than the ones that I usually drew. Shut up. Like I would just tell him “Hey, draw this.” and then he would just do it! What?! If it wasn't for him, this video would've come out like a day later. He put off working on his own video so he could help me so everyone go thank GingerPale. And I bought a Chamberlain Funko Pop! ‘cause he's my favorite! Why is he my favorite? I don't have to explain anything to you! On my Imgur account, I made a comment a year ago that's just “HHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM” a reference to The Dark Crystal and you should all upvote it. So just, I just, frick man… wear your seatbelt.
