![]() ![]() "You know, one of the great things about The Dark Crystal is that it had the same influence on a lot of other artists that it did on us," Grillo-Marxuach tells me. "So once the show was announced and people knew that the show was being made, we got people coming out of the woodwork wanting to work on it because they wanted the opportunity to step into this amazing world that Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Brian Froud put together."įor instance, in the office next door was Star Wars designer Gavin Bocquet. The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance Credit: Netflix Collaboration like this helped push the story forward in exciting and often surprising ways, with ideas coming from all directions. This inspired the writing team to write in the scene where The Scientist loses his eye-one of the most frightening scenes in the entire season. The Scientist, in this current iteration, had two eyes, but the character in the 1982 film only has one. Addiss describes the process as "intensely collaborative."įor instance, one time they found themselves in the Creature Shop where they were working on the Skeksis puppet The Scientist (voiced by Mark Hamill in the show). That collaboration extended to the Henson Company and artist Brian Froud and the creatives in the Creature Shop. In the writer's room with Addiss, Matthews and Grillo-Marxuach was director Louis Letterier, and they collaborated closely on the story and ideas for the show. And so those two factors of Netflix wanting to do it and Hneson knowing how to do it, and then Jeff and I coming and saying 'Here's what to do, here's the story that will unite all of these disparate elements." But Cindy Holland was not kidding, and so the project started going slowly forward and it just so happened that we called up and said we'd like to help. "We kind of thought she was kidding," Matthews tells me, "because the amount of money and time and expertise required to do that-I don't think anyone outside of the Henson Company really understood what they were asking for. ![]() ![]() When I spoke with Henson, she told me the show had originally been conceived along the lines of Avatar: The Last Airbender, for a younger audience. She was the one who approached Lisa Henson and brought up the idea of doing a full live-action TV show with puppets instead of the animated show that they had planned. Will Matthews is quick to point out that a lot of the credit for Age Of Resistance ever being made is owed to Netflix VP of Content, Cindy Holland. Jeffrey Addiss Credit: Kevin Baker (Netflix) "When I was handed that phone and I saw this test and it's a new Dark Crystal with puppets, and with all of the production value and craftsmanship of the movie, I kind of burst into tears in Lisa Henson’s office." At that point, he says, he knew he was going to do the show because "if there is something in your life that made a difference, what's better than to be able to put it out there again for another generation?" On it was the five-minute shot that director Louis Leterrier had created from the pilot's script. "You have to understand," Addiss tells me, "that when I was thirteen, The Dark Crystal was one of those movies-and there were a few of them-but The Dark Crystal was huge for me because it was one of those movies that signaled to me that my tribe was out there, that there were people as weird and creative and desiring to make weird art as I was."Īddiss was called into Lisa Henson's office after the pilot was written where he was asked to sign an NDA and then handed Henson (daughter of Jim Henson) handed him her phone. For many of the people who worked on Age Of Resistance, getting to work on something like The Dark Crystal was a childhood dream come true. ![]()
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