This new project I'm talking about is a contest that is being run by the Jim Henson company. I've followed them off and on over the years, and they always seem on the verge of getting a new Dark Crystal project off the ground. This time, they're preparing to publish a YA prequel novel, and they're allowing submissions from anyone who thinks they are worthy of adding a new tale to the mythology of Thra. Seeing as I was squarely in the target audience for that film – just having turned 11 before its mid-December opening – and have spent more than the average person’s time contemplating the first in the 30(!) years since then, I’ve decided to try to come up with a compelling story to add to its ever-evolving story.
For a period of time, The Dark Crystal was one of those movies that obsessed me. In a world where every sci-fi/fantasy film wanted to be the next Star Wars, Jim (along with conceptual artist Brian Froud) brought us a weird, beautiful, grotesque, almost dream-like movie about a broken world and how it was healed. And while I still loved Star Wars, there was something about the Dark Crystal that intrigued me. It was altogether different, resonated on a deeper level. I took time during school to draw pictures of my favorite scenes, at home read the movie novelization (which I still have, and apparently fetches a fair price for a used copy on Amazon ), and wondered about what came before and after. And that’s why it’s such a no-brainer that I should try to write something new. So before December 31st, I'm hoping to do just that, and turn in 7500 words, representative of the Dark Crystal prequel story I would tell, to the Jim Henson offices.
But it’s kind of a daunting task. First of all, there’s more to learn about the history of the world of Thra (only the first part being that the world has a name). There's the film itself to consider, along with graphic novels and ancillary tales. It's all part of Jim Henson’s original design in creating a deep, rich world that you feel has existed for a long time. I've just finished the first two Dark Crystal Creation Myth graphic novels that have been released in the last few years, and have been trying to get my head around all the new backstory.
Thinking about this particular creation of Jim’s has got me thinking about him more than I have in the past decade. I remember exactly where I was when I heard he had died... I was at Disney World, of all places. I was on spring tour with the U of M Men's Glee Club. We did one every May at the end of the school year, and that particular year we were traveling the southeastern part of the country. That day, we were free to walk around Epcot Center and then had an outdoor evening performance to meet for, but when we arrived that morning on the bus someone had heard the news and passed it on to everyone. I was pretty shocked -- Jim Henson was still a relatively young guy -- and was profoundly sad to hear it.
My first thought on hearing of Jim's death was, "Damn. I was hoping to get to work with him someday." At the time, I was all geared up to be a filmmaker, and honestly thought that I was going to break into the industry one way or the other. Movies had been my childhood and adolescent obsession, and it would be a few more years until the indie film revolution came and went, and even a few more before I realized that making up the stories was the only part that I really wanted to do.
The news that day affected me the same way all this Dark Crystal research has: it got me thinking about what a product of Jim's imagination my own imagination really is. When I think about it, he was an almost constant presence for the first fifteen years of my life, when I learned how to act toward others, how to create, and how to dream. I started with Sesame Street in the early 70s, then switched to The Muppet Show in the late 70s (which I would watch religiously every Sunday night, and marvel every time at how fast a half hour could go by), Fraggle Rock in the 80s, then The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth after that. My favorite Christmas album always has been (and I assume always will be) A Christmas Together, a collaboration the Muppets did with John Denver -- it's the only one that is actually funny and moving as well... which is a spirit that also infused the HBO special Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas. I absorbed all of this in my first fifteen years of life, and didn’t really lose touch with it until high school brought me under its sway.
So what did Jim teach me? Well, he taught me that you don't have to be a grandstander to be a good leader. Kermit the Frog never made a big deal about the fact that everyone seemed to answer to him, in fact he questioned it often -- most notably in a strange conversation with himself in the middle of a midnight desert two-thirds of the way into the first Muppet Movie. But Kermit didn't need to doubt himself. He never used his position to force his ideas on people. If anything, what he really showed was an ability to let everyone around him be themselves, and good things would come from it. The Muppets were the quintessential band of misfits -- the comedian who was never funny, the diva who had questionable levels of talent (and was a pig to boot), the cook who kept getting antagonized by his own ingredients, the scientist who constantly blew things up... But Kermit was the rock, the focal point of all their attention, because he was really their audience. I don't think Fozzie ever cared that his jokes bombed every night, because Kermit was still his friend afterward. I imagine that Kermit's relationship with his performers was much the same as Jim's was with the artists he surrounded himself with. He was the one who took all their disparate talents and brought them into focus.
But Jim showed us the darker side of leadership as well. Aside from that conversation with himself I already talked about, Kermit does encounter other moments of profound self-doubt. The most famous one, of course, is the song "It's Not Easy Being Green", which I still think is one of the most profound meditations on identity and self-acceptance you can find under three minutes in length. In that time, he goes through what for most people is a lifetime of second-guessing yourself and your worth, and breaking through to realize how important you really are with the question, "It could make you wonder why... but why wonder?"
The thought that I might get the chance to add something to Jim's vast set of worlds and characters is one of those instances where you find that after all the years and miles, you've somehow come back around to where you started, and the thought that all the dreams and stories and adventures you've had all along were just small parts of a glorious, uniform whole. I thank Jim and his family for this coming opportunity to show my appreciation for all that he gave to us.
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