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Netflix "The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance" Prequel Series!


scallenger

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Thor's not entirely wrong though. The whole sessions' dump mentality of most commercial film music albums does a great disservice to these scores. Album curation and presentation is a skill. And by virtue of the scoring process for most blockbuster films, and television shows (especially the latter), there's a large bulk of generic filler music that says nothing. Composers and producers need to be more mindful of how they're reflecting and presenting their work. 

 

It's a big reason why I can't get into most modern film music.

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3 minutes ago, KK said:

Composers and producers need to be more mindful of how they're reflecting and presenting their work. 

 

For years film music fandom demanded exactly that and now they got it. 

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Yeah, I get that. But it makes it really exhausting to try anything new these days. I don't really want to dig through 60 minutes of generic drones, loops, stingers and meandering chords to get to about 10 minutes of good to decent material.

 

And people just write film music differently nowadays too. At least Williams still designs and filters set-pieces that focus on musicality specifically for presentation rather than the more functional-driven stuff. Zimmer does the same too, for the most part. All the new kids on the block just throw in every mockup, MIDI and scrap files on their PC and package it into a 2 hour OST that says very little as a whole...it's music without real architecture.

 

 

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18 minutes ago, KK said:

Yeah, I get that. But it makes it really exhausting to try anything new these days. I don't really want to dig through 60 minutes of generic drones, loops, stingers and meandering chords to get to about 10 minutes of good to decent material.

 

You tell me. I had Crystal and It Part II on rotation since friday and what a chore that was. The real bad thing is how you lose enthusiasm for the whole thing - and Dark Crystal was badly overscored, from what i saw on Netflix, so i really have to decide now if i continue or just watch the series and ignore the album.

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The original film is just all-around rough around the edges. But it’s so out there that it has a fantastic life of its own. Same goes for the music, even though it’s mostly one of those 80s mono-thematic scores (yes, I know the love theme exists, but the film mostly coasts on the main theme).

 

The music has no real personality in the tv series whatsoever, other than the occasional feel-good moments which Pemberton’s power chords are functional enough for. But you eventually forget about it in the background.

 

It’s a shame though. On the second episode, and with this kind of attention to detail, this could have seriously benefitted from some LOTR-level sonic world-building.

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  • 9 months later...

Started this after loving the movie, 4 episodes in. The "ohmygod it was a so epic event with everyone coming together and so darkness coming and world so much bigger, there are 4 cliche storylines converging now instead of just one with some special elements" feeling that makes the original feel like a footnote (AKA later made prequel-itis) was kinda expected, the puppetwork and production design is great, voicework's pretty good, but the pacing feels very offputting to me. Something always has to happen, or faked to look like things are really happening with that insufferable ADD camera always flying and running and rushing and zooming all over the place and cutting too much. I guess it's targeted at the expected Netflix user's attention span. And still it feels like half of it was superfluous and it all could have been told more efficiently. Maybe by the end things will clock into place more.

 

 

Oh, half the score sounds like they just tracked in Witcher 3 and Gareth Coker's Ori and the Blind Forest! Just without any noticeable motifs or coherence or anything after teasing me with the Trevor Jones theme on the first title card.

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8 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

The score is shite, that much I can tell.

 

Not at all. It's extremely uneven; there are some great parts, and some rather generic parts. You're better off creating your own playlist of the material.

 

The series is absolutely excellent. I realize how expensive and time-consuming it is, but I'm hoping there will be another season.

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I enjoyed the show a lot. Yes, there are clichés and prequel traps it falls into, but the world building and craft involves is so good that you buy all of it.

 

Music is pretty generic in the show. I never bothered with the album.

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I like the score and listen to both albums a lot. I like the soundscape Pemberton created. There's a lot of thematic material throughout that's based around the different components of the main theme, plus a few other minor themes here and there. The themes aren't the strongest but I enjoy the score's unique flavor.

 

The show was nice to look at, but the puppets were too human looking for how limited their facial expressions were. They probably could have gone more stylized and less realistic and had more success. I also couldn't get into the story/script. Which was a shame considering what a lavish budget they seemed to have for a puppet TV show, and how good the visuals were overall.

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When I heard a series was forthcoming, I watched the original film for the first time. Amazingly, I hadn't seen it in my childhood. Well, I was totally blown away by it -- a masterpiece (nurturing experience-oriented cinema decades before AVATAR). And then when I subsequently watched the series, I was equally blown away by how respectful they were of the original film, and how it just seemed like a natural return/continuation of that story and universe (despite a couple of CGI shots).

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Well, I stuck with it... and I'm glad because I did quite like it after all. Thankfully the worldbuilding progressed beyond cutting all over between places and characters you're only now trying to get to know, the convergence of plots lead to good mixes, and I loved elements like those poor slave wretches, and the comedic pair who know they're one and tell backstory through... what else but puppetry?

 

I did still think the overly moving and sliding and twisting camera and some very modernish lighting and lightning effects (Crystal, draining) were very distracting and there was plenty of excess in plot. I'm looking forward to the next season (there's gotta be one, right? It wraps up in a temporary way that does not lead naturally into the movie yet,  and it was received very well), but I seriously hope they're not planning to drag it out for more than one or maybe two more if they can be expected to be on the same level.

 

Oh, and get a composer (or showrunner/director/producer) who isn't content with doing a wallpaper mush that is somehow still extremely texturally disjointed and clashing.

 

You know what else I came to appreciate? The sound team filling in all the holes and tricks inherent in the nature of puppetry for us in a way that we don't even really notice.

 

I love Deet, something about her sculpt made her so cute and expressive!

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To be honest, I'm not even sure there will be a second season. It's insanely time-consuming to construct such a lavish show with old-school puppetry.

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  • 2 months later...

The score was really really hard to listen to. I guess I'm also the only one who was totally bored by the show.

 

I feel like most of the appeal is the effects and craft of it. 10 episodes or whatever it was was just WAY too much. Like earlier in the thread about how there's 50 minutes of droning on about nothing and 10 minutes of actual good material? That's how I felt about the show as well. Good riddance, I say.

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I must have seen a different show, since I felt the pacing was very good.

It didn't deserve to be cancelled either. Even if I couldnt see how they would keep the story going towards the inevitable conclusion. 

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1 hour ago, SilverTrumpet said:

The score was really really hard to listen to. I guess I'm also the only one who was totally bored by the show.

 

I feel like most of the appeal is the effects and craft of it. 10 episodes or whatever it was was just WAY too much. Like earlier in the thread about how there's 50 minutes of droning on about nothing and 10 minutes of actual good material? That's how I felt about the show as well. Good riddance, I say.

 

I agree with some of your sentiment here, in terms of it being too long and sometimes spending too much time on predictable story beats.  But the world, the visuals and the puppet artistry were exquisite and when it really started to get into the meat of the story I thought it was really quite good children's fantasy.  The highlight of the season was definitely the Mystic/Skeksis that had transcended their enmity and embraced their unbreakable connection.

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Superb show, but I'm not surprised it was cancelled. In fact, the surprise would be if it had been renewed for a second season, given the amount of detail and work that went into this. Good  to know that they'll find some way to connect the ending with the original film at some point.

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For me Jones' score for the dark crystal always was a reference to me for what Howard Shore did many years later for LotR. I mean the way that all the different themes are related to each other so that the appear as a whole. Don't know exactly how to describe it. But I See big similarities in how these scores are build.

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This might not be the right thread for this, but I like it better than "Last Movie You Watch" compilation threads.  We watched The Dark Crystal for the first time a week or two ago, and I'm puzzled why people really like it.  Beyond the craftsmanship, it was a big shrug for me.  I felt the same way on my recent first watch of The Neverending Story.  Maybe it's nostalgia. 

 

I did get Jones' OST though, pretty good.

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2 hours ago, mstrox said:

This might not be the right thread for this, but I like it better than "Last Movie You Watch" compilation threads.  We watched The Dark Crystal for the first time a week or two ago, and I'm puzzled why people really like it.  Beyond the craftsmanship, it was a big shrug for me.  I felt the same way on my recent first watch of The Neverending Story.  Maybe it's nostalgia. 

 

For me, it's not a case of nostalgia. Curiously, I didn't see THE DARK CRYSTAL while growing up -- even though I was right in the target audience at the time. I only saw it for the first time about a week before I started the show, and fell immediately in love. I was blown away by the world building and atmosphere decades before James Cameron was doing the same stuff in AVATAR. And then equally amazed by how well they had recaptured that tactile quality in the series.

 

THE NEVERENDING STORY, however, is a different story (no pun intended). That one is knee-deep in nostalgia. However, you'll have to be a pretty cynical bastard to laud its values as only down to nostalgia or a guilty pleasure. I've seen it many times in my adult years, and - detached from nostalgia - consider it a masterpiece within its genre.

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8 hours ago, Thor said:

THE NEVERENDING STORY, however, is a different story (no pun intended). That one is knee-deep in nostalgia. However, you'll have to be a pretty cynical bastard to laud its values as only down to nostalgia or a guilty pleasure. I've seen it many times in my adult years, and - detached from nostalgia - consider it a masterpiece within its genre.

 

 

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Yeah, I am of course upset they decided to cancel. Sure, likely due to cost... but I mean, they already built so many of the puppets they would need. What's a couple more skeksis and a garthim army gonna do to their budget? ;) :( I really hope another streaming service picks this up. Some of those plot threads need to be tied up!

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  • 1 year later...

That would be amazing. Given the insane work that goes into a show like that, I had not expected a second season. Still don't. But by all means -- fingers crossed!

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This series must've been crazy expensive to make!

I can imagine it would've been hard to recuperate the costs...

 

Also, I wonder if perhaps it's difficult now to make a S2 because the experience gained is being used elsewhere.

Certainly the focus on practical creature effects increased massively on the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

I could quite imagine a ton of people who worked on Dark Crystal moved over to that one.

And with Star Wars showing no signs of slowing down any time soon, could it be that many people are just not available?

 

Perhaps they could consider doing in CGI for a S2; like they had originally envisioned.

Being allowed to do it practically was an unexpected bonus.

 

On the other hand, reverting to CGI after already having done a practical S1...

It could kind-of be taken as an admission that the practical approach had been a mistake.

No matter how bad-ass and impressive the results...

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