WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Dark Crystal 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.200 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.280 Time to go into the Old Vault, and this time 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.800 the Vault is glowing with an eerie purple light. That's right, 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.239 we're gonna go back to Uh let's see. This was 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.160 March four, nineteen. We did an episode on Jim Henson's 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.239 The Dark Crystal and this one, this one was a 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:26.799 lot of fun. I was really excited to do this. 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.280 One of my favorite films. Uh. This, however, was before 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.360 the Netflix series The Dark Crystal The Age of Resistance 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:39.360 came out, so all the additions to the world are 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.559 not reflected in this particular episode. But I will go 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.320 on record as saying that I loved The Age of Resistance. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.960 I thought it was a fabulous of your experience. Me too, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.200 I thought it was absolutely wonderful. Terrible name, but great show. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.240 What well, I mean, you have to call it something? 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.279 He didn't. You didn't have to do a colon name. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.720 I can't get with the colon titles. Why does everything 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.720 have to be a colon something of something that the 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.440 title of this episode is from the Vault Colon The 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.080 Dark Crystal. You know, I could, I could sometimes do 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:14.040 with fewer colon's in our titles. I am, I'll go 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.160 on record is sort of anti colon really Okay, well, 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.640 I mean, you know, every every creature has one, some 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.000 of the creatures in the Dark Crystal. I think I 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.200 have multiple colon's. But anyway, Yeah, this is a This 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.920 is a fun, a fun podcast episode. We hope you 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:33.840 enjoy it. Travel to another world, another time in the 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:50.640 Age of Wonder the Crystal. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:59.760 your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:01.400 to to have to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.000 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.680 another movie episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I'm 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.640 so excited about this. When Robert, what are we talking 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.280 about today? We're gonna be talking about The Dark Crystal. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.800 Last month it was Highlander two. Uh. You know, I 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.280 think a pretty objectively terrible film. But this time we're 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.960 talking about a film that that, in my personal opinion, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.320 is is a indeed a great film, if not a 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.240 perfect film. In the words of a good friend of 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.960 mine who's it is his favorite movie of all time, 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.280 he posits it is the most magical movie ever made, 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.639 and I think I agree. There is no more magical film. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.320 There's also no film I can think of that is 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.720 a more pure fantasy than The Dark Crystal. There are 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.760 a lot of fantasy movies, but The Dark Crystal is 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.359 is the most fully committed to a fantasy vision. It's 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.160 a movie with no human beings in it. Yeah, it 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:56.200 is a it's just a wonderful alien experience. But yet 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.359 one that you know is it shadows the natural world 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:05.160 that we we know. It's shadows human mythologies and storytelling traditions. Uh. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.320 And it really leads to just an overall eloquent work. 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.120 Um to remind anyone who hasn't seen it or does 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.079 just sort of introduce you to it, because I've spoken 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.480 to people who have not seen The Dark Crystal, uh, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:18.920 and I have to tell them about it. I have 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.519 to serve as an ambassador for this film. Uh. It 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.040 came out in two directed by Jim Hinson and Frank 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.760 Oz written Kerman yea Kerman Hed written by David O'Dell 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.280 and Jim Henson, and the world and creature designs were 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.200 created by the artist Brian Froud and then and then 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.560 brought to life through Hinson's creature shop and just the 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.840 vast effort of just an entire industry of people. Uh. 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.880 There's a wonderful making of documentary that is generally included 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.800 on most TVs and blue rays uh that you'll find 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.080 of of the Dark Crystal. Highly recommend everyone watch that. 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.400 In short, though, The Dark Crystal is a story of 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:04.400 prophet and reunification in a divided fantasy world, in a 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.120 world that, like you said, it is almost entirely rendered 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.600 via puppets. I mean, you'll see rocks and maybe a 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.120 few you know, you know, see some grass, etcetera, that 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.200 sort of thing. But sometimes the grass is a puppet, 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.719 that's right. Sometimes the you know, the faun of the flora. Uh, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.800 all of it is is realized with puppetry, at least 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.760 at some point in the film. The various creatures were 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.680 designed through a superb fusion of that imaginative design from 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.360 Brian Fraud, inventive puppeteering and puppet design from Jim Hinson's 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.200 creature shop, and also the various professional physical performers such 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:43.239 as dancers and still walkers. And you really can't over 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.560 emphasize the importance of these three things coming together, because 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.000 it's it's not enough. That's like, the creature looks real, 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.360 but does it move in a way that feels real? 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.240 And then does it move in a way that doesn't 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.680 feel like a human in a suit? Yeah? So it is. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.159 It is a beautifully designed film, and it's the kind 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.440 of design that I love. You know, it's back before 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.080 everything with c g I. It's puppets, it's models, it 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.960 sets its painted backgrounds. God, I love painted backgrounds, and 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.720 I would love to go back to that more often. Yeah, 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.719 it's it's a film that that that really could have 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.120 only occurred in two It came into at a perfect 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.640 time because on one hand, like you said, if it'd 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.760 come out a little later, you would have had the 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:31.239 early c g I coming coming into play. You imagine 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:35.640 that like Mortal Kombat Level c g I the Dark Crystal, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.760 or or likewise, if it had been earlier, you might 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:43.240 not have had the degree of a technical know how. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.440 Certainly the puppetry technology might not have been quite where 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:48.280 it needed to be. I would also say a thing 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.120 that's remarkable about The Dark Crystal is the way that 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:55.120 it seems to be a product of true collaborative evolution, 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.680 because it seems like it's something that was originally kind 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:02.600 of a rough concept and mythology dreamt up by Jim Henson, 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.720 who joined forces with Brian Froud and Brian Froud's type 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.720 of creature designs. Brian Froud illustrated like giants and fairies 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.159 and things like that, and so his designs for creatures 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.440 sort of fed back into Henson's ideas about the story 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.760 and the mythology, and then all this came together and 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.440 got more definition when the performers came on board. It 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.480 seems like a real ensemble creative project that was formed 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:33.119 by a gradual accretion of mutations over many generations. Yeah, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.120 And a big part of that was that, like there 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.160 was money for this to happen, and I you know, 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.080 it's not a given that that would have been the case. 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.800 That's Muppet money, and Muppet it is Muppet money, Like 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.520 I believe part of the deal was, like, you know, 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:46.960 when it was financed, it was like, all right, you 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:48.320 can make the Dark Crystal, but you gotta make some 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.599 Muppet movies as well. We need them, you know that 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.680 we need to have the definite cash cows as well 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.919 as this This sort of long gamble at trying to 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.400 cash in on the sort of you know, franchise um 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.520 uh dominance that you saw just a few years earlier 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.919 with Star Wars. Yes, and also I think it was 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.920 pretty clear through the Empire Strikes Back that people were 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.280 looking at The Dark Crystal and saying, Hey, you know 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.960 Yoda the puppet, he's very popular in the Empire strikes Back. 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.320 We can we can make some puppet money with this 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:24.080 Dark Crystal thing. Now, arguably it may not have reached 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.280 the degree of financial achievement that they were that everyone 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.320 was hoping for at the time, but it has certainly 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.920 become a beloved film, and certainly one with a very 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.040 strong occult following um and uh and and today generally, 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.360 if you find if you ask somebody about The Dark Crystal, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:43.560 sometimes you may get some people are like, oh, I 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.200 remember seeing that as a kid. It was a little dark, etcetera. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.880 And it does have some darker serious themes. Yeah. Um, 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.440 But I don't think I've ever met anybody who who 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.040 disliked to the Dark Crystal, Nor do I want to 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.160 meet something to dislike The Dark Crystal, because that's its 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.400 probably gonna be pretty big red flag for me that 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:03.640 maybe we don't have a lot in common. Yeah, if 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.360 you don't like it, don't even bother right and end 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.920 to tell us no, no, you can you can tell 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.680 us I'd be interested here your reasons, okay, But why 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.280 are we talking about the Dark Crystal today? For starters, 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:16.520 we do like to chat about films on the show 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:18.160 here and there, and they often give us a means 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.920 to discuss various scientific, philosophical, or psychological concepts that in 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.640 some cases we might not otherwise cover. And with the 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:27.840 Dark Crystal, I think I think there's there's a lot 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.520 to be said about how it reflects aspects of our 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.280 world and what we can see of planet Earth and 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.800 human culture in the world of Thraw Thraw. So that's 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.960 the planet they're on in the Dark Crystal or I 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:42.400 don't know if they say play yeah, I guess it's 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.760 the planet. It's their world. Yeah. It gets kind of 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.360 tricky when you start trying to apply that like the 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.520 scientific lens to a world that is uh to a 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.880 to a pretty large degree realize through mythology, you know, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:02.640 like it's we will get into some astronomical concepts, but 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.199 for the most part of the world of the Dark 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.920 Crystal is a world of of myth and magic. Yeah. 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:08.960 And also I will say, though I love The Dark 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.680 Crystal and I'm a partisan of science, I will say 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:13.840 it is not I don't know if it is a 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.520 strongly pro science and narrative because you notice in the 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.880 film basically science and technology seems to only exist among 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.560 the bad guys and the Well, no, that's not quite true. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.240 There's Augura. Yeah, I'm overstepping. And then the say, the 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.520 Skexies have a scientist, but the good mystics are more 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.920 mystical in nature. Yes, but then we have to consider 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:37.840 where they came from and well we'll get back to 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.319 that in a bit. Okay, but but those are those 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.440 are aliens, those are that come to the world of Thraw. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.680 We should talk for a little bit about the the 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.720 native inhabitants of this world. So, for first and foremost, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.840 The Dark Crystal is the story of gelf Links. Yeah, 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.840 it's it's a sort of hero's journey type narrative, basic 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.000 classic adventure narrative, with a with a young Gelfling at 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.480 the core of it. Yeah, two of them, actually, we 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.839 have We start off with the male gelfling Jin and 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.600 then we meet a female Gelfling later on named Kira, 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.600 and they are the last two, or seemingly the last 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.319 two members of their species. And we we come to 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.800 learn that that they were their people were hunted to 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:26.240 extinction by the Ske Ske season in ages past. And 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.240 I guess we'll have to explain explain the sas. But 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.200 basically their species is all but extinct. If we're to 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.400 apply you know, scientific understanding, I think we can safely 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.480 say that they're extinct in the wild, like the gene 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.160 pool would be too shallow for them to repopulate the world, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.000 though in a mythological sense, like the sort of Adam 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.440 and Eve logic applies, and they could conceivably bring everything back. 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.760 But but then also more to the point, their culture 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.920 is uh is extinct, like the only thing we see 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.880 of original Gelfling culture we see in ruins, because Jin 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.920 and Kira have each been raised by a different people. 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.000 Gin has been raised by the mystics, the Uru, and 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.720 then Kira is raised by the podlings. These sort of 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:16.160 utat people. Yeah, they live in huts and uh and 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.280 the dance about and have a good time. They do 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.079 quite literally appear to have potatoes for heads. Yes, they 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.520 and we're modeled on potatoes. Yeah, so they live sort 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.600 of underground. It makes sense. They're they're potato potato humans, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.880 basically little potato people. Now. Biologically, one thing that is 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:35.079 interesting about the gelf wings, uh, is that the males 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.640 are wingless and the females have wings. Otherwise they're sort 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.560 of basic. They're they're the most human characters in the film. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.560 They're kind of elf like, thus the word gelfling uh 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.520 sort of you know, elf like humanoids. But the wings 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.640 are interesting because ultimately this would be an example of 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:57.080 sexual dimorphism, and we see this kind of sexual dimorphism 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.199 a lot, say in the insect world. You'll find examples 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:05.160 of winged females and wingless males. Uh. You know, bees, wasps, ants, 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:10.680 soft flies, different types of beetles, all boasting morphological gender differences. 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.120 And the reasoning generally comes down to pure sexual economics. 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.920 You know, for all intents and purposes, females are these 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.400 species itself in most cases, in all cases, and males 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.920 exist as a biological variant necessary for sexual reproduction. Yeah. 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.400 They basically in a lot of these insects species, the 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.960 males are just kind of there to mate and then 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.560 do much else. I mean, for an extreme example, just 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.319 consider there's a particular type of fairy fly um called 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:42.280 uh dico Pomorpha egmc cargis, And not only are they 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.320 wingless compared to the winged females, but they're also blind 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.400 and non feeding, so they don't even remember working digestive system. Yeah, 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.240 now we don't see that in the gulf links. But 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.680 but at any rate, it's an interesting case where you 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.559 can you can look at this fantasy example and see 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.240 how it matches up with the real world biology. But 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.400 in in the insect examples, the males exist only to breed, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.920 and that breeding takes place close to where they hatched, 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.840 often with nestmates, so there's no need for them to 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.680 disperse um. However, if we were to, you know, apply 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.040 this to the guelf wings, we might assume that male 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.079 gelf links exist primarily to breed close to home, when 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.080 the females would have migrated to find new mates, produced 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.640 new young, find new communities of guelf links, that sort 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.800 of thing. I don't know if we get much sense 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.640 of that in the movie, because it seems like they're 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.760 both long lived. At least that the jin Jin, the 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.560 boy guelf link ventures out. Yeah, that's right. We do 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:37.360 see that it's a reversal that Jin is the one 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.079 who ventures and and Kira is the one that is 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.160 still remaining close to home. So so you know, maybe 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.120 that doesn't match up all that. Well, Oh, I didn't 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:46.679 mean to say it doesn't match it all. I mean, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.360 I just that I would say that the gelf links 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.920 perhaps are not insects showing insects. Well, another possibility would 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.480 be that perhaps Kira still has wings but there, and 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.520 we see her sort of glide with them, that not 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.440 really eye with them. Perhaps they have more of a 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.440 pure like mating display purpose, you know, like they're a 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.760 show of fitness, reproductive fitness. Well, in that case, I 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:10.520 would think you'd be more likely to see them on 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.880 the males. That's true. This would be an inversion of 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.080 the sexual dimorphism we typically see where the male is 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.320 the one with the with the fancy peacock feathers as 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:21.800 opposed to the pe hen. Another bit of a sexual 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.600 dimorphism with the Gelfings is that the gin is a 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.400 little bit taller, So I mean that could be maybe 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:29.720 Gen's a little older than Kira, but also it could 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.440 just be like the sexual dimorphism of more of a 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:37.120 sort of a warrior cast within the species, so we 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.720 can consider that as well. But basically the big difference 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.880 is the wings uh and and uh. And that kind 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.120 of spoils a key moment in the film for people 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.800 who haven't seen it. Uh oh yeah, because it comes 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.080 as a surprise to to Gin as well. I mean, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.720 I would say the experience of the Dark Crystal is 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.640 not really about learning what's going to happen. You can 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.840 probably kind of predict to the plot. It's more about 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:02.760 the experience of the world, the texture of it. But 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:04.960 we are going to continue to talk about the plot 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:06.760 of the film today. So if you can't stand to 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:11.080 have this, uh, this rather straightforward hero's journey kind of 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.280 story spoiled, I guess you should stop here and then 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:18.160 come back after you've seen it, alright. Well, another native 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.080 species that plays a pretty important role in the film 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.120 are the land striders. And this is this is my 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.280 this is my son's favorite creature from the movie, and 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.640 he's always drawing these things that These are long legged 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:35.560 striding herbivores that are sometimes used by gelf links as mounts, 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.640 and they are ferocious fighters when they have to be. 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.760 They're kind of sweet looking, but they can really put 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.880 up a fight. They've got like pussycat whiskers of funny 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.080 looking eyes. They're great. Like most of the creatures in 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.120 the Dark Crystal designed by Fraud here, it is kind 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.360 of difficult to put a real firm line on the 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:56.720 on the hybridity that's going that's taking place. You know, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.560 it's not just a case where oh, it's a tiger 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.600 with a rabbit's head. Know, it's more like there's a 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:03.720 sense of a rabbit to it, but also the sense 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.960 of an insect or a moth, and also a giraffe. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.560 And it's all swirled around in a way that feels 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.840 familiar but also just distinctly alien. But we do see 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:20.080 some some some key real world animals reflected in it, 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.440 most notably probably the giraffe. So the giraffe that are 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.320 real world land striders. They can actually reach top speeds 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.280 of thirty seven miles per hour, but they can't really 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.520 maintain it for long. But their kicks are are no joke, 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.200 just as the kicks of the land Strider are seen 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:41.080 to be pretty devastating against their their enemies. Um An 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.880 adult giraffe can kill a human or a lion if threatened, 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.400 and they've also been pretty effectives slinging their necks, certainly 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.240 in fights against other giraffes. Well, yeah, long limb gives 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.120 you a lot of leverage. You can you can really 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.240 whack with that thing. There's also again a hint of 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.520 the rabbit and the land strider anatomy, and I've also 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.720 read that out consider jumping spiders and designing them, so 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:04.800 that kind of makes sense. They've got a kind of 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.560 so they've got very long legs below, but then they've 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.879 got this hunched upper body that looks almost kind of 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.760 like the the bunched up tiny body of a salta 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.080 said spider. Yeah, now I was thinking about like animals 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.600 like this. When you consider really long legged animal body forms, 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.640 you can think of quite a few reasons for animals 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.920 to have long legs compared to the rest of their body. 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.200 Might be a defensive thing, you know, maybe they want 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.080 like big legs for you know, a lot of leverage 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:30.840 and kicking. Maybe they want to be able to move 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:35.800 faster across short distances, longer stride longer legs. Of course, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.560 the long legs also come with downsides to fast movement. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.760 But another thing would be to reach farther or taller. 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.679 Is fairly simple one. But one really interesting example I 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.639 came across of animals with long legged body ratios is 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.760 for a totally different reason. Uh. I want to look 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.360 at the black winged stilt or human optus human optus. 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:58.680 This is a type of bird that's a very land 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.119 strider to my eye. Uh. It's got these long, narrow 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.639 legs with these kind of knobby joints. Uh. And it 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.680 walks around in the water. Human Optus has found all 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.240 over the world, and they walk around in the water 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:16.520 pecking around for food. According to the British zoologist Mark Carwardine, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.520 the black wing stilt has the longest leg to body 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.560 ratio of any bird on Earth, with an average body 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.680 length of thirty five to forty cimeters and an average 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.520 leg length of seventeen to twenty four centimeters. Uh. The 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.080 legs are usually about sixty or more of total body length. 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.200 I'm looking at a picture of one right now, and 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.200 these are some long legs. Yeah, it's it's a bit 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.840 ridiculous looking. But the question would be why, I like, 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.000 do they need to reach up into trees? And the 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:48.280 answer here is interesting. Instead, they're reaching down. The human 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.760 optus bird is a waiting forager like wades around in 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.960 water or mud, pecking down below to catch its prey. 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.040 And the long legs allowed the bird to walk around 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.080 in water pecking at prey, keeping their body up above 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.280 the water and dry. And I guess if you want 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.879 to do that, longer legs allow you do way deeper. Interesting. 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.560 And you know, in the Dark Crystal, the landstrider does 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.240 seem to be more of a like a purely terrestrial animal. 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.159 And and it kind of there are some swamps in 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.200 there are a lot of swamps, So you know, I 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.000 don't know if anybody's ever really drawn a fine line 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.240 on why they have long legs. I always kind of 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.200 imagine that it was more like a draft they needed 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.879 to reach like high pining fruit or flowers or something 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.520 to chew on. But you can easily imagine one trooping 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:35.399 through the swamp as well. All right, let's take a 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:37.160 quick break and when we come back, we'll talk about 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:43.920 the Wise Woman of thraw Agra. Than alright, we're back. Uh, 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.720 So everybody's gotta have a favorite character in the Dark Crystal. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.000 It's kind of hard for your favorite character not to 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.400 be agraa. Auger is pretty great. Like she's she's commanding, 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.960 she's powerful, she's wise, she grunts a lot. She like 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.359 every there are great scenes where she like sits down 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.680 and releases this powerful grown of discomfort as she does. So. Yeah, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.399 I have seen the interviews, old interviews where Frank Oz 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.280 describes her as being you know, she's she's so ugly, 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:13.080 she's beautiful, that she's there's this there's this grotesque, gorgeous 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.320 quality to her. She she can detach her eye and 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.400 hold it in her hand to see around with it. Yeah, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:22.480 she has uh I belie. She has like sort of 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.440 goat curl curl goat horns um coming out of her head. 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.520 And she has what looks like a parietal eye where 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.000 a third eye would be um, you know, kind of 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.720 like you see in the say lizards and various species. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.359 So she too, is this kind of thing that seems 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:40.480 like a hybrid of all these different forms, though she's 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.639 largely humanoid. Uh We we only learned so much about 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.920 her in the actual film. But there's a wonderful book 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:52.200 that came out um Bye Brian Froud titled The World 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.960 of the Dark Crystal. It's magical. This is one of 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.280 the best illustrated books ever, and it's so it's um 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.840 It is presented as if it is a like an 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:10.520 academic translation and gloss on an ancient text that's been discovered, 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.560 and that ancient text is the Book of Augura. So 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.520 it takes as like a fact as if you know, 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.159 the stuff that happened in the Dark Crystal is like 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:24.040 a mythology from a long ago existing culture, and Augura 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.719 is the author of this mythology. And then it's been 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.280 translated by a by a fictional scholar and I think 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:34.200 named lue Ellen, right with the various academic asides of uh, 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.720 dismantling what's happening there, But but we learned it's it's 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.119 really a wonderful book, not only because it's filled with 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.919 Froud's production art and designs, but it is it's just 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.679 so weird too, because it could have just been that, right, 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.320 it could have just been Hey, my name is Brian Froud, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:51.159