WEBVTT - Matinee Science Playlist, Part 2: ‘The Dark Crystal’ 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:05.880 Travel to another world, another time in the age of 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:22.400 London The Crystal. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:31.160 from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey you, welcome to 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.400 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.160 and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with another movie 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.560 episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I'm so excited 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.520 about this. When Robert, what are we talking about today? 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.480 We're gonna be talking about The Dark Crystal. Last month 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.360 it was Highlander two. Uh, you know, I think a 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:51.120 pretty objectively terrible film. But this time we're talking about 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.840 a film that that, in my personal opinion, is is 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.480 a indeed a great film, if not a perfect film. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.120 In the words of a good friend of mine who's 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.240 it is his favorite movie of all time, he posits 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.960 it is the most magical movie ever made. And I 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.440 think I agree. There is no more magical film. There's 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:09.720 also no film I can think of that is a 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.120 more pure fantasy than The Dark Crystal. There are a 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.560 lot of fantasy movies, but The Dark Crystal is is 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.760 the most fully committed to a fantasy vision. It's a 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.720 movie with no human beings in it. Yeah, it is 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.720 a It's just a wonderful alien experience. But yet one 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.840 that you know is it shadows the natural world that 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:36.479 we we know. It's shadows human mythologies and storytelling traditions. Uh. 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:40.639 And it really leads to just an overall eloquent work. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.399 Um to remind anyone who hasn't seen it or did 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.400 just sort of introduce you to it, because I've spoken 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:48.800 to people who have not seen The Dark Crystal, uh, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.240 and I have to tell them about it. I have 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.840 to serve as an ambassador for this film. Uh. It 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.360 came out in two directed by Jim Hinson and Frank 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.160 Oz written Kermit and Yoda yea Kermit Yoda written by 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.920 David O'Dell and Jim Hinson, and the world and creature 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.920 designs were created by the artist Brian Froud and then 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.240 and then brought to life through a Hinston's Creature Shop 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:15.760 and just the vast effort of just an entire industry 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:20.200 of people. Uh. There's a wonderful making of documentary that 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.480 is generally included on most Stevs and blue rays uh 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.400 that you'll find of of the Dark Crystal. Highly recommend 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.120 everyone watched that. In short, though, The Dark Crystal is 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.880 a story of prophecy and reunification in a divided fantasy world, 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.880 in a world that, like you said, is almost entirely 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.800 rendered via puppets. I mean you'll see rocks and maybe 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.240 a few you know, you know, see some grass, etcetera, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.520 that sort of thing. But sometimes the grass is a puppet. 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.000 That's right. Sometimes the you know, the faun of the flora. Uh, 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.079 all of it is is realized with puppetry, at least 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.040 at some point in the film. The various creatures were 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.000 designed through a superb fusion of that imaginative design from 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.639 Brian Fraud, inventive puppeteering and puppet design from Jim Hinson's 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.480 creature shop, and also the various professional physical performers such 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:14.520 as dancers and still walkers. And you really can't over 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.840 emphasize the importance of these three things coming together, because 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.320 it's it's not enough. That's like, the creature looks real, 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.679 but does it move in a way that feels real? 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:26.600 And then does it move in a way that doesn't 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.960 feel like a human in a suit? Yeah? So it is. 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.440 It is a beautifully designed film, and it's the kind 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.720 of design that I love. You know. It's back before 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.400 everything with c g I, it's puppets, it's models, it 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.760 sets its painted backgrounds. God, I love painted backgrounds and these. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.040 I would love to go back to that more often. Yeah, 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.400 it's a film that that that really could have only 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.720 occurred in two It came in at the perfect time 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.040 because on one hand, like you said, I would come 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.840 out a little later, you would have had the early 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.640 c G I coming coming into play. You imagine that 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.920 like Mortal Kombat Level c G I, the Dark Crystal, 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.080 or or likewise, if it had been earlier, you might 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.520 not have had the degree of a technical know how. 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.800 Certainly the puppetry technology might not have been quite where 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:19.600 it needed to be. I would also say a thing 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.440 that's remarkable about The Dark Crystal is the way that 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.400 it seems to be a product of true collaborative evolution, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.000 because it seems like it's something that was originally kind 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.920 of a rough concept and mythology dreamt up by Jim Henson, 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.039 who joined forces with Brian Froud and Brian Froud's type 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.039 of creature designs. Brian Froud illustrated like giants and fairies 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.479 and things like that, and so his designs for creatures 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.760 sort of fed back into Henson's ideas about the story 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.080 and the mythology, and then all this came together and 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.760 got more definition when the performers came on board. It 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.760 seems like a real ensemble, creative project that was formed 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:04.640 by gradual accretion of mutations over many generations. Yeah, And 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:06.599 a big part of that was that, like, there was 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.640 money for this to happen, and I you know, it's 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:11.400 not a given that that would have been the case. 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.120 It's Muppet money, and Muppet it is Muppet money. Like 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.800 I believe part of the deal was, like, you know, 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:18.280 when it was financed, it was like, all right, you 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:19.960 can make The Dark Crystal. You gotta make some Muppet 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:23.080 movies as well. We need them, you know that we 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.160 need to have the definite cash cows as well as 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.520 this this sort of long gamble at trying to cash 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.279 in on the sort of you know, franchise um uh 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:35.960 dominance that you saw just a few years earlier with 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.640 Star Wars. Yes, and also I think it was pretty 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.480 clear through the Empire Strikes Back that people were looking 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.200 at The Dark Crystal and saying, hey, you know, Yoda 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.280 the puppet, he's very popular in the Empire strikes Back. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.640 We can we can make some puppet money with this 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.400 Dark Crystal thing. Now, arguably it may not have reached 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.520 the degree of financial achievement that they were that everyone 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.160 was hoping for at the time, I'm but it has 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:06.240 certainly become a beloved film, certainly one with a very 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.360 strong occult following. Um and uh and and today generally, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.599 if you find if you ask somebody about The Dark Crystal, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:14.880 sometimes you may get some people are like, oh, I 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.480 remember seeing that as a kid. It was a little dark, etcetera. 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.559 And it does have some darker serious themes. Um. But 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.400 I don't think I've ever met anybody who who disliked 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.240 The Dark Crystal. Nor do I want to meet something 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.000 to dislike The Dark Crystal, because that's it's probably gonna 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.040 be a pretty big red flag for me that maybe 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.000 we don't have a lot in common. Yeah, if you 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:36.720 don't like it, don't even bother right and end to 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.400 tell us no, no, you can you can tell us. 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.000 I'd be interested to hear your reasons. Okay, but why 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:44.960 are we talking about The Dark Crystal today? For well, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.440 for starters, we do like to chat about films on 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.159 the show here and there, and they often give us 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.599 a means to discuss various scientific, philosophical, or psychological concepts 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.720 that in some cases we might not otherwise cover. And 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:58.920 with The Dark Crystal, I think I think there's there's 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.560 a lot to be said about how it reflects aspects 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.200 of our world and what we can see of Planet 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.600 Earth and human culture in the world of Thraw Thraw. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:11.880 So that's the planet they're on in The Dark Crystal 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:13.560 or I don't know if they say, yeah, I guess 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.000 it's a planet, it's their world. Yeah, it gets kind 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.560 of tricky when you start trying to apply that, like 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.640 the scientific lens to a world that is, uh to 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:28.200 a to a pretty large degree realize through mythology, you know, 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:34.000 like it's we will get into some astronomical concepts, but 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.840 for the most part, the world of The Dark Crystal 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.640 is a world of of myth and magic. Yeah. And 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.679 also I will say, though I love The Dark Crystal 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.120 and I'm a partisan of science, I will say it 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:45.640 is not I don't know if it is a strongly 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.400 pro science narrative, because you notice in the film basically 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.600 science and technology seems to only exist among the bad 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:57.400 guys and the well, no, that's not quite true. There's Augura. Yeah, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.880 I'm overstepping and in the say, the Skexy have a scientist, 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:05.840 but the good mystics are more mystical in nature. Yes, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.160 but then we have to consider where they came from. 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:09.800 And well we'll get back to that in a bit. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.280 But but those are those are aliens, those are that 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.960 come to the world of Thraw. We should talk for 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:21.320 a little bit about the the native inhabitants of this world. Okay, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.239 So first and foremost, The Dark Crystal is the story 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.400 of gelf links. Yeah, it's it's a sort of hero's 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.960 journey type narrative, basic classic adventure narrative with a with 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.760 a young Gelfling at the core of it. Yeah, to 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:36.880 two of them, actually we have. We start off with 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.120 the male gelfling Jin and then we meet a female 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.680 Gelfling later on named Kira, and they are the last 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.359 two are seemingly the last two members of their species. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.680 And we we come to learn that that they were 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.240 that their people were hunted to extinction by the ske 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.360 Skexias in in ages past. And I guess we'll have 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:00.640 to explain the we'll explain this ex he's in a bit. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.400 But basically, their species is all but extinct. If we're 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.320 to apply you know, scientific understanding, I think we can 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.520 safely say that they're extinct in the wild, like the 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.960 gene pool would be too shallow for them to repopulate 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.920 the world. Though in a mythological sense, like the sort 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.800 of Adam and Eve logic applies, and they could conceivably 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.240 bring everything back. But but then also more to the point, 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.800 their culture is uh is extinct, like the only thing 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.560 we see of original Gelfling culture we see in ruins, 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.440 because Gin and Kira have each been raised by a 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:38.080 different people. Jin has been raised by the mystics, the Uru, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.880 and then Kira is raised by the podlings. These sort 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.480 of uh potato people. Yeah, that they live in huts 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.320 and uh and the dance about and have a good time. 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.199 They do quite literally appear to have potatoes for heads. Yes, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.480 they and we're modeled on potatoes. Yeah, so they live 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.920 sort of underground. It makes sense. They're they're potato potato humans, 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.199 basically little potato people. Now. Biologically, one thing that is 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:06.600 interesting about the gelflings uh is that the males are 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.080 wingless and the females have wings. Otherwise they're sort of 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.880 basic they're they're the most human characters in the film. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.880 They're kind of elf like, thus the word gelfling, uh, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.840 sort of you know, elf like humanoids. But the wings 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.960 are interesting because ultimately this would be an example of 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:28.360 sexual dimorphism, and we see this kind of sexual dimorphism 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.480 a lot. Say in the insect world. You'll find examples 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:36.480 of winged females and wingless males. Uh, you know, bees, wasps, ants, 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:42.480 soft flies, different types of beetles, all boasting morphological gender differences, 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.439 and the reasoning generally comes down to pure sexual economics. 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.240 You know, for all intents and purposes, Females are these 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.679 species itself in most cases, in all cases, and males 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.200 exist as a biological variant necessary for sexual reproduction. They basically, 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.439 in a lot of these insects species, the male are 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.480 just kind of there to mate and then don't do 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.280 much else. I mean, for an extreme example, just consider 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.520 there's a particular type of fairy fly um called uh 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.600 dico Pomorpha egg mc tergis. And not only are they 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.600 wingless compared to the winged females, but they're also blind 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.040 and non feeding. Oh, they don't even have a working 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.080 digestive system. Yeah, now we don't see that in the 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.400 guelf links. But but any rate, it's an interesting case 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.600 where you can you can look at this fantasy example 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.040 and see how it matches up with the real world biology. 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.200 But in in these insect examples, the males exist only 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.680 to breed, and that breeding takes place close to where 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.640 they hatched, often with nest mates, so there's no need 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.240 for them to disperse um. However, if we were, you know, 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.040 apply this to the gelf wings, we might assume that 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.199 male gelf links exist primarily to breed close to home. 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.960 One of the females would have migrated to find new mates, 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.640 produced new young, find new communities of gelf links, that 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.880 sort of thing. I don't know if we get much 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.440 sense of that in the movie, because it seems like 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.840 they're both long lived at least that the jin Jin, 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.760 the boy gelf Lin ventures out. Yeah, that's right, we 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.520 do see that. It's a reversal that jin is the 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.240 one who ventures and and Kira is the one that 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.160 is still remaining close to home. So so you know, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.160 maybe that doesn't match up all that. Well, Oh, I 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:17.800 didn't mean to say it doesn't match it all. I 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.400 mean I just that I would say that the gelf 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.960 wings perhaps are not insects showing insects. Well, another possibility 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.680 would be that perhaps Kira still has wings but there, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:30.640 and we see her sort of glide with them, but 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.640 not really fly with them. Perhaps they have more of 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.280 a pure like mating display purpose, you know, like they're 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.000 a show of fitness, reproductive fitness. Well, in that case, 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:41.760 I would think you'd be more likely to see them 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:43.960 on the males. That's true. This would be an inversion 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.200 of the sexual dimorphism we typically see where the mail 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.280 is the one with the with the fancy peacock feathers 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.080 as opposed to the pea hen. Another bit of sexual 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.920 dimorphism with the gelflings is that the jin is a 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.720 little bit taller. So I mean that could be maybe 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.040 Gen's a little older than Kira. But also it could 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.720 just be like the sexual dimorphism of more of a 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:08.400 sort of a warrior cast within the species. So we 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.080 can consider that as well. But basically the big difference 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.199 is the wings. Uh and and uh. And that kind 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.480 of spoils a key moment in the film for people 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.280 who haven't seen it, uh, because it comes as a 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.480 surprise to gin as well. I mean, I would say 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.360 the experience of The Dark Crystal is not really about 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.640 learning what's going to happen. You can probably kind of 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.040 predict to the plot. It's more about the experience of 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.880 the world, the texture of it. But we are going 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.920 to continue to talk about the plot of the film today. 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.360 So if you can't stand to have this, uh, this 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.240 rather straightforward hero's journey kind of story spoiled, I guess 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.480 you should stop here and then come back after you've 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:51.120 seen it. Alright. Well, another native species that plays a 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.200 pretty important role in the film are the land striders. 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.560 And this is this is my this is my son's 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.560 favorite creature from the movie, and he's always drawing these things. 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:05.280 These are long legged, striding herbivores that are sometimes used 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.520 by gelf Links as mounts, and they're ferocious fighters when 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.080 they have to be. They're kind of sweet looking, but 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:13.240 they can really put up a fight. They've got like 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.480 pussycat whiskers, funny looking eyes. They're great. Like most of 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.160 the creatures in The Dark Crystal designed by fraud. Here, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.040 it is kind of difficult to put a real firm 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.840 line on the on the hybridity that's going that's taking place. 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:29.400 You know, it's not just a case where oh, it's 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.080 a tiger with a rabbit's head. No, it's more like 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.560 there's a sense of a rabbit to it, but also 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.520 the sense of an insect or a moth, and also 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.200 a giraffe. And it's all swirled around in a way 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.720 that feels familiar but also just distinctly alien. But we 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:51.080 do see some some some key real world animals reflected 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.400 in it, most notably probably the giraffe. So the giraffe 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.320 are real world land striders. They can actually reach top 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.400 speeds of thirty seven miles per hour, but they can't 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.240 really maintain it for long. But their kicks are are 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.080 no joke, just as the kicks of the land strider 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.800 are seen to be pretty devastating against their their enemies. 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.000 Um an adult giraffe can kill a human or a 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.080 lion if threatened, and they've also been pretty effective slinging 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.600 their necks, certainly in fights against other giraffes. Well, yeah, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.840 long limb gives you a lot of leverage. You can 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.160 you can really whack with that thing. There's also again 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.360 a hint of the rabbit and the land strider. Anatomy 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.040 and I've also read that fraud considered jumping spiders and 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.440 designing them, so that kind of makes sense. They've got 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.320 a kind of so they've got very long legs below, 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.640 but then they've got this hunched upper body that looks 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.520 almost kind of like the the bunched up tiny body 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.360 of Assualta said spider. Yeah, Now I was thinking about 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.840 like animals like this. When you consider really long legged 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.040 animal body forms, you can think of quite a few 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.480 reasons for animals to have long legs compared to the 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.880 rest of their body. Might be a defensive thing, you know, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.560 maybe they want like big legs for you know, a 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:01.520 lot of average and kicking. Maybe they want to be 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.920 able to move faster across short distances, longer stride, longer legs. 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.080 Of course, the long legs also come with downsides to 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.440 fast movement. But another thing would be to reach farther 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.760 or taller. This fairly simple one, but one really interesting 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.960 example I came across of animals with long legged body 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.600 ratios is for a totally different reason. Uh, the I 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.400 want to look at the black winged stilt or heman 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.280 optus human optus. This is a type of bird that's 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.720 a very land strider. To my eye, it's got these long, 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.720 narrow legs with these kind of knobby joints. Uh, and 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.840 it walks around in the water. Heman optus is found 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.280 all over the world and they walk around in the 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:46.200 water pecking around for food. According to the British zoologist 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.480 Mark Carwardine, the black wing stilt has the longest legged 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.240 to body ratio of any bird on Earth, with an 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.360 average body length of thirty five to forty centimeters and 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.680 an average leg length of seventeen to twenty four cinameter. Uh. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.680 The legs are usually about six or more of total 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.240 body length. I'm looking at a picture of one right now, 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.280 and these are some long legs. Yeah, it's it's a 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.119 bit ridiculous looking. But the question would be why, like 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:15.879 do they need to reach up in the trees, And 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.320 the answer here is interesting. Instead, they're reaching down. The 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.920 human optics bird is a waiting forager like wades around 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.280 in water or mud, pecking down below to catch its prey. 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.359 And the long legs allowed the bird to walk around 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.399 in water pecking at prey, keeping their body up above 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.560 the water and dry. And I guess if you want 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.240 to do that longer legs allow you do wag deeper. 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.320 Interesting and you know, in the Dark Crystal, the land 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.600 Strider does seem to be more of a like a 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.840 purely terrestrial animal, and it kind of there are some 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.440 swamps in there are a lot of swamps, so, you know, 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.960 I don't know if anybody's ever really drawn a fine 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.479 line on why they have long legs. I always kind 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.280 of imagine that it was more like a draft they 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.840 needed to reach like high um fruit or flowers or 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.200 something to chew on. But you can easily imagine one 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.639 trooping through the swamp as well. All right, let's take 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:08.200 a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:14.280 about the wise woman of thraw Agra. Thank alright, we're back. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.359 Uh So, everybody's gotta have a favorite character in the 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:19.960 Dark Crystal. It's kind of hard for your favorite character 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.720 not to be agraa Ogre is pretty great. Like she's 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.680 she's commanding, she's powerful, she's wise, she grunts a lot, 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.000 She like every They are great scenes where she like 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.880 sits down and releases this powerful groan of discomfort as 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.959 she does. So. Yeah, I have seen interviews, old interviews 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.120 where Frank Oz describes her as being you know, she's 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.600 she's so ugly, she's beautiful that she's there's this there's 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:47.360 this grotesque, gorgeous quality to her. She she can detach 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.280 her eye and hold it in her hand to see 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.360 around with it. Yeah, she has uh belly, she has 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:58.160 like sort of goat curl curled goat horns um coming 0:18:58.160 --> 0:18:59.800 out of her head. And she has what looks like 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.879 parietal eye where a third eye would be um. You know, 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.000 kind of like you see and say lizards and in 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.199 various species. So she too, is this kind of thing 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.399 that seems like a hybrid of all these different forms, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.399 though she's largely humanoid. Uh. We we only learned so 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.080 much about her in the actual film. But there's a 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:23.080 wonderful book that came out um by Brian Fraud, titled 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.040 The World of the Dark Crystal. It's magical. This is 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.879 one of the best illustrated books ever and it's so 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.240 it's um. It is presented as if it is a 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:40.840 like an academic translation and gloss on an ancient text 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.720 that's been discovered, and that ancient text is the Book 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.359 of Augura. So it takes as like a fact, as 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.440 if you know, the stuff that happened in the Dark 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:54.120 Crystal is like a mythology from a long ago existing culture, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.679 and Augura is the author of this mythology. And then 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.119 it's been translated by a by a fictional sky all 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.000 learned I think named lue Ellen. Right with the various 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:08.159 academic asides of uh dismantling what's happening there, But but 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.520 we learned it's it's really a wonderful book, not only 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.399 because it's filled with Froud's production art and designs, but 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.120 it is it's just so weird too, because it could 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:18.840 have just been that, right, it could have just been Hey, 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:21.480 my name is Brian Froud, and I worked on this 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.320 movie called The Dark Crystal. Here, here's some of the pictures. No, 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.600 it's this this this utterly weird and magical and one 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.040 of a kind of book. But but in it, yeah, 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.320 we hear a lot more about Augura, where she came from. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.399 We get more of a sense of the backstory on 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.800 the world of Thraw. But we learned that she's something 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.320 like an earth elemental, that she's like a being that 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.840 rises up out of the stones and the roots of 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.520 the world so that the world can have voice, in 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:54.520 that the world can witness what's happening, and uh, and 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:57.040 then she loses one of her eyes when the great 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.040 conjunction occurs, but we'll get more into that later on. Yeah. Now, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.000 one of the cool things about all gress that she's 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.600 sort of an astronomer astrologer type, right. She has in 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.600 her laboratory. She has like a big observatory on the 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.520 top of a mountain, and within it there is an 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.480 oor y, and I love a good oorory. So an 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.879 oory is basically a mechanical model of the movement of 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.159 celestial objects, usually of the planets in the Solar System, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.560 and these have been constructed based on various astronomical models 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.399 throughout history. They became very popular in the early modern 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.080 period to represent the heliocentric model of the Solar System. 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:39.280 A standard or y would operate by orbiting physical objects 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:44.280 around based on a clockwork mechanism timed to simulate a 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.919 ratio of the actual orbital periods. And of course, because 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.680 the mechanisms that generate the movements were approximate, the known 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.240 oories are basically all to some degree inaccurate. You might 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.680