When he gets possessed by the spider-like Arathim and starts to speak as if he were assimilated by the Borg, creepiness and hilarity ensue. One of the funniest scenes, however, occurs in the Crystal Desert when the Hunter tosses a mouthy Gelfling off of a cliff.ĭeet’s little brother Bobbin, a cherub-faced lad with pools of blackness for eyes, created moments of humor just because of his appearance. Rian also endures his share of being thrown around, first on a runaway Skeksis carriage and by an intimidating Skeksis known as The Hunter.
#Shadow puppetry series#
The series begins with the Gelfling Deet being flung around by an angry Nurloc, crazed by the Darkening that is infecting Thra. There are plenty of scenes to choose from. “You learn that it’s fun to throw puppets, so we started adding more things of puppets being thrown, puppets being thrown off things. “It’s fun to put the characters into extreme conditions,” said Addiss. The producers deliberately leaned into this duality to create darkly comic scenes. And yes, that little bit of distance can also make certain dramatic situations simultaneously feel ridiculous. The concept of the violence is still communicated without the weight and gore of using human actors. That also makes it easier to put the puppets in mortal danger. They are just a great engine for comedy.”Īin't no party like a podling party! /HJCagRevFfĭespite their tangible nature, puppets still look slightly removed from reality, which helps contribute to the series’ otherworldly atmosphere. And then this huge list of things they could be doing at the bar, like … the Podling lady who blows Rian a kiss, who sends the drink over. “We would just spend a day coming up with weird things for Podlings to be doing, like at the Deterg, eating mud, jumping out of things playing the games. “Because Podlings are the most ‘puppety,’ you can go the farthest, you can do the most, you can have the most fun with them,” said Addiss.
They mirror the Gelfling civilization in a lot of ways, but because they don’t have the intellectual and emotional sophistication of the Gelfling, they really give you a lot of avenues to explore a lot different points of view in this world. “Some are extremely sophisticated and ahead of the curve, others are right in the middle, others are wallowing in the mud and have to be bathed. “One of the things about the Podlings is that whenever I go to my daughter’s school you see that kids between 2 and 4 have an extraordinary amount of bandwidth,” said co-executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach. Of all the puppets in the series, the Podlings provided the most opportunities for laughs.įrom ‘Y Tu Mamá También’ to Disney+: Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s 20-Year Journey Podlings As a backdrop to the story of the Gelfling uprising is the entire planet of Thra, a world teeming with imaginative creatures and plants, all realized through puppetry. In the series, the creepy Skeksis reign over the Gelfling and are extending their own life by sucking the essence from their subjects.
#Shadow puppetry tv#
Plus, puppets are just goddamn funny.Ĭo-creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews wanted to make a TV show for everybody, and that meant offsetting the grimmer aspects of “Dark Crystal” with some levity. The use of puppetry creates a visual continuity with the original 1982 Jim Henson film and makes the performances far more compelling and immediate than CGI would. According to “ The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” making-of documentary, Netflix’s prequel series first tested a version using computer graphics to create the characters, but ultimately decided that puppets were the best choice.
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