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Lest you think that I'm about to suggest Star Wars parallels, allow me to immediately steer us toward Lord of the Rings. The cleaving of a metaphysical crystal, freeing a precious shard, has shattered the balance between good and evil. The evil Skeksis dominate; they hold the crystal and use it as a means to artificially extend their life spans, yet there remains only ten of them. The gentle Mystics, peaceful, spiritual, and also reduced to a mere ten survivors of their kind, await the fulfillment of a prophecy that has a small waif-like Gelfling restoring the crystal and the balance between good and evil. Their planet orbits a trinary star system, and if a very rare convergence of the three suns occurs without first making the crystal whole, the Skeksis will become immortal and evil will dominate for all time.

Jen may be the last of the Gelflings; the Skeksis have slaughtered his kind. He had been adopted by the Mystics and raised under their protection. When Jen's master and mentor lies on his deathbed, the Mystic finally reveals what he must do. Jen accepts the quest and armed only with his wits and determination, faces a myriad of odd and sometime deadly creatures and dangerous terrain to recover the shard and restore the dark crystal.

This is a wonderfully imaginative film. The Henson creature shop has conjured up a delightful menagerie of whimsical characters, plants, and animals. While the plot may be derivative, the creativity and execution are simply delightful. You may find the rotoscoping and matte lines a bit distracting; we've certainly become spoiled by the sophistication of modern special effects. But this is a good-natured film that tells an interesting tale in an inspired world.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment originally released The Dark Crystal on DVD in October 1999, then once again as a Superbit edition in February of 2003. Presented here again in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen as with the previous two releases, this transfer appears to be minted from the same remaster as the Superbit, which was not the same as the first DVD. Overall the two are surprisingly comparable despite the slightly reduced bit rate, largely because of the absence of the DTS track.

Edge halos are present but are rarely seen and never intrude. Small object detail and textures are strong, so much so that it is fairly clear when we're looking at a miniature - the folds and wrinkles of Skeksis skin, withering after many years of artificial life extension, are conveyed in wonderful detail. I will assume that color accuracy is very good, as I have no reference since I've never met any of the creatures that inhabit this film. Bright colors are vividly painted to the screen with no chroma noise or smearing. Shadow detail is very good if a hair less than the Superbit. I noticed no compression artifacts, only a very film-like presentation that is certain to impress.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Gone is the DTS track from the Superbit release; the Dolby Digital 5.1 track definitely shows signs of its age in terms of fidelity. You won't hear any of the highest highs or the lowest of the lows. In fact, even though the .1 LFE channel was activated, I had serious reservations about if it was truly being used at all. Dialog, which is obviously entirely ADR, sounds smooth without distortion. The music score by Trevor Jones sounds wonderful. The most impressive part of this soundtrack is how directional all the effects are. Early, in chapter 4, you'll hear Jen playing his flute with the sound of a waterfall on the left and a different water wheel on the right. This is pretty standard throughout the whole mix. Surround use is infrequent and I could never hear any instances of split activity. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that this mix was derived from the original 70mm, six-track magnetic soundtrack.

An English 2.0 surround and a Spanish mono track are also included, along with English and Spanish subtitles and English Closed Captions.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

For its third go-round, this Collector's Edition of The Dark Crystal is a mix of goodies new and old.

First, the new. The packaging replicates a hardbound book (if considerably cheaper), and contains a nice liner essay from Cheryl Henson, the late Jim Henson's daughter, a collectible (and very small, measuring an inch across) film cell, and a reproduction of Henson's notebook, containing all of his detailed scribblings done during shooting. It is a nice-looking little box, although given the $49.95 list price, I did expect something a little more extravagant.

There is also a trio of new text-based extras, but they are disappointing. We get Henson's original Mithra Treatment, which is fine, but the Character Illustrations gallery is only ten stills, set up to repeat ad nauseam, which feels like a cheat, as does the Storyboard gallery, which is also only 15 stills to infinity. These seem like an afterthought designed to milk yet more money out of fans; the are presented in a very basic fashion and there is no explanatory text provided.

The rest of the supplements are all old. Dropped from the first special edition release is the isolated score, which is an unfortunate omission, although if you are not a soundtrack collector, you may not miss it. Otherwise, all of the other extras have been carried over. Most impressive is the 60-minute documentary The World of The Dark Crystal, originally produced in 1982. This is a very engaging look into the beginning of the project and the evolution to get it on screen. We are given looks at the creation of the world from conceptual drawings to the fabrication of the puppets and then the behind-the-scenes footage of how shots were created. Interviews with the late Jim Henson give an insight into the decisions that had to be made that would effect the realism and authentic feel given to the final film. One weird thing about the documentary is whenever actual film footage is shown, the sound goes out-of-phase and emanates from the surround channels. I don't think this is a fault of the disc, but rather how the original was recorded.

In addition are a collection of original language scenes providing an alternate take on some of the dialog in the film with what was actually spoken on set by the puppeteers. Listening to Aughra sound like a mix between Grover and Yoda almost makes this disc worth it all by itself. Subtitling is provided with the dialog as spoken in the final film. There is also the famed deleted Skeksis funeral scene provided from a source that is really worn, just as would be expected from a workprint.

Two of the sections of the disc are geared toward text. The first section is the character profiles and drawings for the Skeksis and Mystics. The second are talent files for the co-directors, Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and the conceptual artist, Brian Froud. To be honest, I found these talent files to be a bit slim. A bevy of theatrical trailers rounds it out: the teaser trailer for Dark Crystal, both the American and European full trailers, one for Labyrinth and a short trailer/commercial for the upcoming Henson Films production of The Storyteller. All of the Dark Crystal trailers are pretty old and warn and were probably from someone's private collection.

DVD- ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Parting Thoughts