HAKSKEEKAH!

I never, EVER saw this one coming.

The title to this blog post will only have meaning if you were geeky enough to have read the novelization of the 1982 Jim Henson fantasy film The Dark Crystal. I, of course, was geeky enough to have read it, and the term is used by the Skekses to describe their “trial by stone” where they take big blades and repeatedly whack at a big rock to see who can make the biggest cut in it.

I use this term because it’s a Dark Crystal term, and I’m making a Dark Crystal post, so I figured it was appropriate.

The reason I’m making this post is because I recently decided to watch The Dark Crystal again just for the hell of it, and then went and looked it up on Wikipedia only to find to my stunned amazement that the Jim Henson Company has announced they are working on a sequel, scheduled for a 2008 release.

Heck, they even have a blog where they post updates about the production. The movie is a true sequel in every sense of the term. It takes place after the events of the first film, with the characters Jen and Kira still kicking around. However, thanks to the miracle of CGI and digital post-production, they’re going to be doing things a little bit differently this time. From what I’ve read, they’ll be going the 300 route and mostly resorting to CG backgrounds, but what interests me is that they’re going to still be using puppets. However, these puppets have been built in an entirely different manner than any puppet used in film or television before. The reason is they’re going to shoot the puppets on a green screen (naturally, for the CG background) but they’re also to have the puppeteers wearing suits so that they can digitally painted out.

This completely blew my mind, and made perfect sense. But, as with the original film, it’s something that’s never been done before. Not with puppets. I can see how this would suddenly free the design of the puppet since you wouldn’t need to build raised stages to hide the puppeteers, or worry about getting the wires running into the limbs appearing in shots. I’m really, really interested in seeing how this turns out, because The Dark Crystal has always been one of those 80′s movies that’s always sat in my head, in a space all it’s own. There’s never been anything quite like it, and up until now, I never thought I’d see anything again remotely like it.

I sure hope this doesn’t suck.