Retro Nostalgia: Aliens (1986) and Ripley’s Maternities (Some Rambly Thoughts)
(What follows are some random thoughts I had while re-watching James Cameron’s Aliens. I’d love to open up a nice discussion about the film, so feel free to leave a comment agreeing/disagreeing with or adding to my argument(s).) I’ve always loved the relationship between Ripley and Hicks. Obviously, it’s implied that there’s a significant romantic link between them, but the film makes light of it through jokes, in part so the very real problem — survival in the face of certain death — never falls prey to the romantic narrative underneath. And there’s also a sense — for me, anyway — that Ripley and Hicks don’t actually have to develop a romantic relationship for there to be something between them. A lot of people also read Aliens as a narrative about maternity. I’ve started to think about the narrative as a metaphor for unexpected parenthood (and child mortality), too. If you think about it, the first chunk of the film focuses on Ripley’s return to the world; one of the reveals is the death of her child, whose death she cannot prevent. While an inaccurate metaphor for infant mortality or some equally naturalistic death of one’s child, these sections of the film seem remarkably like a story about a parent dealing with the death of a child. In this interpretation, Burke takes the form of a father (I can’t think of a single mention of the biological father of Ripley’s daughter, so I assume one of the two is out of the picture — probably Ripley, which is unusual in the real world). Since Burke represents Ripley for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who seem to be the ones in control of everything, he also acts as a kind of father figure in the remotest sense. Her relationship with him, as such, is strained by his link to the Company and to her past (i.e., the death of her child, etc.). I also think there’s something profoundly disturbing to read into Burke’s actions near the end of the film, in which he tries to infect/impregnate Newt and Ripley with xenomorphs (a rape and child abuse metaphor?). The other maternity narrative is one we’ve all probably heard before: Ripley’s “adoption” of Newt. I think of Newt not necessarily as the adopted child in a traditional sense, but more as a discovery of a child you didn’t know you had. Ripley jumps into the role of mother figure quite naturally (she is technically a mother, after all), but she also seems to acknowledge the distance between them. These two elements suggest to me that Newt is supposed to take the place of an unexpected child. But I’ll admit that this idea is not as thought out as I would like. I won’t suggest that Aliens is a perfect film from a feminist perspective, but it’s hard to imagine it as anything else. Every aspect of the narrative involves questions about the place of women in worlds that for so long have been the domain of men. After all, in 1986, women didn’t serve in combat positions in the U.S. In Aliens, they do (even Ripley, though she sort of gets roped into it). Women are shown doing a lot of things our culture likes to tell them they can’t do. They can have children and work jobs “meant for men.” They can serve in the military, use weapons or heavy machinery, fly complicated aircraft, fight for themselves, and on and on and on. True, most of the women die in this movie, but so do most of the men. This is one of the reasons why I love this movie. It doesn’t pander to a masculine audience in the same way as other SF action movies. Ripley isn’t eye candy here. She doesn’t run around bending over so you can see her toned abs or the curves of her breasts or her toosh or whatever (not that she’s not physically attractive, mind, but most of the characters in this movie end up covered in filth and wounds; the whole Megan-Fox-bends-over-a-car-so-we-can-stare-and-her-tumtum wouldn’t make any sense in that context). If anything, what makes Ripley such an attractive character is the fact that she is a character. And, honestly, I think she’s probably the greatest female protagonist in all of science fiction. But maybe I’m stretching with that last statement… ——————————————————– Note: I may return to this film for the Retro Nostalgia feature. Keep an eye out for that.
Retro Nostalgia: Contact (1997) and Conflating Faith and Science and Its Hopeful Ethos
Anyone with a passing familiarity with Carl Sagan’s popularization of science will recall his profound optimism, both with humanity’s scientific endeavors and its almost desperate need to strive for “more.” I think it’s fair to say that he imagined science as humanity’s great thrust to greatness — to controlling itself and its environment. After all, he famously said that “[imagination] will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” And while he was not a religious man, he didn’t fear suggesting that science could provide a spiritual vision of the world: Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of lightâyears and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both. Sagan’s optimism, understandably, bleeds through the narrative of the film adaptation of Contact (1997) (how could it not?). Ellie’s father, Ted (David Morse), for example, answers his young daughter’s (Jena Malone) question about life in the universe by cleverly playing the “it’s too damned big of a universe” card — he suggests that if there isn’t anyone else out there, then all that space is wasted. Adult Ellie (Jodie Foster) eventually relays these lines to preacher/religious popularist Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), who also repeats them to the world after Ellie’s return from her mission and the media firestorm of the perceived failure of the project (not to mention Ellie’s implication that faith in her story is necessary). What’s fascinating about the film (and, I suspect, the book, which I have not read) is its refusal to shy away from implying that this optimism will ultimately form the basis for a faith argument for science. In the end, it is that unison of religion and science which offers one of Sagan’s most optimistic visions: namely, that science and religion could ever unify in an increasingly hostile political environment. Palmer and Ellie are themselves stand-ins for these respective fields, suggesting that the romantic conclusion of their narrative must be deferred too, lest faith be rested from the audience on all counts. Sagan must have been quite hopeful for the future of science to have imagined a world where the greatest religious “threat” to science is an attractive religious guru who can see the writing on the wall. Hence why the last line in the above quote is so crucial: “The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” Contact is essentially Sagan’s spiritual mind at work, imagining all the possibilities of the science and spiritual realms coming together for the same united purpose: seeking some deeper truth about the universe — science on the natural questions; spirituality on the questions about understanding our place in a suddenly crowded universe. Sadly, if Contact had been written in the late 2000s, Sagan might have seemed naive. Perhaps that’s actually a good thing. When people called for more optimistic SF in 2009-2010 (resulting in Vries’ Shine Anthology), they must have had Contact on the mind, if not in actuality, then in spirit. Contact is a film that strives to find the positive in a world bloated with bureaucracy, religious terrorists, and fear (it is also a largely male world we are presented, with some exceptions). The government wants to control everything, the vain scientists want to use Ellie’s discovery to further their own careers, even at the expense of others, the people at large cower or clamber in supplication before things they do not yet understand, and, finally, the religious extremists, seeing this great moment as a threat to their authority, want to destroy the entire project, even if that means preventing humanity’s next great leap forward. Ellie’s almost desperate need to remain involved, to discover whatever is “on the other side,” to leap into the darkness and bring back answers, holds her up in this storm. She won’t participate in the politics or the glory of discovery; she only wants to discover, to know, to understand. Unlike the people around her, with the exception, perhaps, of Palmer and a handful of minor characters, Ellie has only one desire: to use this momentous occasion to understand humanity’s place in the universe. It’s her optimistic view of the world that I find so pleasant. She truly believes in the mission, not because it will bring her material wealth in the future, but because taking the leap of faith by building and using the machine will actually advance human knowledge. She is the idealized scientist (the film actually offers a foil to this idealized image; he dies — not insignificantly). But whereas Ellie’s journey to discover “the answers” proves successful, the world at large is left in the dark. The aliens, descended from a collective who occasionally reach out to new species as those species reach the next stage in their technological evolution, prevent anything but 17 minutes of static from being recorded during Ellie’s trip. In a final nerve wracking scene, Ellie must defend herself against a verbal onslaught by the government, almost as if in a mirror of McCarthyism. The irony? For a government so encumbered with religious thought, they cannot accept her meek request that everyone has to take what she says on faith (she doesn’t put things in those exact words, but that has to do with her apprehension over faith). It’s not made clear whether the government does take her seriously, or if they see this as an opportunity to attack her and the billionaire financial backer who made the project possible. Regardless, the fusion of science and faith in
Retro Nostalgia: Gattaca (1997) and Framing the Multivalent Ethical Dilemma
Before Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca (1997) begins in earnest, we are compelled to think about its underlying ethical dilemma: is a meritocratic system based on (mostly pre-selected) genetic variables justified, even if that means denying some people equal access simply because their genes say there is something wrong with them? If you have seen the film, then you know how the story ends — the genetic “weakling” succeeds at doing the impossible, throwing into question the very notion that one’s genetics are an absolute determination of one’s potential. Thus, one possible side question is: without the aforementioned meritocratic system, would Vincent/Jerome have fought so hard to succeed? Questions like this are why films like Gattaca, The Truman Show, The Minority Report and, to a lesser extent, District 9, Logan’s Run, and Soylent Green (just to name a few) are such profound models of ethical problems put in action. Gattaca is one of the few films that does so directly, offering the following William Gaylin quote in first the few moments: “I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to.” It is difficult to tell whether the film is a direct response to Gaylin’s belief, a partial acceptance of the principle, or a violent refutation. I am, however, partial to violence. Gaylin’s quote is put in place without context, almost as if to tell us that this is a future we very well might see — and soon — not because it is “happening now,” but because we will give in to Mother Nature’s demand. The natural progression for an intelligent, technology-oriented species such as ourselves is to tamper with what makes us “us.” In one sense, you might think of Gattaca as Andrew Niccol’s answer to that notion: yes, we might do it, but the ramifications will create an underclass marked (just like with race or gender) by factors beyond their control. The moral quagmire, however, makes race and gender look relatively tame.* Unlike most (if not all) arguments about race or gender, there is a logic behind Gattaca‘s worldview. There are no real, scientific differences between Caucasian, African, Asian, and so on — at least, not differences that matter in a meritocratic sense. But the opposite is true for Vincent/Jerome; he is, in fact, a genetic “weakling,” containing within him flaws that limit his lifespan and his cognitive/physical abilities. A world where such information is freely available, as it is in Gattaca, has two main options: it can discard all other subjective factors for selection, or it can shift to the only seemingly objective standard by which to judge people’s capabilities — genetics. It’s a purely logical system, when you get right down to it, and that, in a sense, is what makes Gattaca a more disturbing dystopia than more violent, direct incarnations. But underneath this is another important factor: choice. William Gaylin’s quote suggests that we’ll tamper because that’s what nature wants, implying that genetic augmentation and genetic meritocracies are natural progressions for human civilization. Yet doing so will mean punishing people for their parents’ behavior. Vincent/Jerome, as a “god child” (someone born with natural “chance”), is not a participant in his creation; thus, all the disadvantages his genetics offer are ones he could not change even if he wanted to. The dilemma, as such, is yet another question: if ability is mostly determined by one’s genetics, and many jobs require a great deal of natural ability, do we relegate entire segments of the population to menial labor in order to increase “productivity” despite the fact that many of those people had no hand in their own creation? And is doing so the best course of action for this society? Yes, it is (says Gattaca in my mind). And we’re not supposed to feel particularly good about that prospect, in part because most of us recognize the terrifyingly logical discrimination at the heart of the film. In the end, Gattaca wants us to reject this entire idea, to throw our chips in with Vincent/Jerome — after all, he does exceed his genetically-determined potential. But Vincent/Jerome is the exception that proves the rule. There is no way to know if his success will shatter the perceptions of his world, though it is possible to read the various events in the final moments of the film as leading to that conclusion. However, I tend to see the end as confirmation: Vincent’s/Jerome’s success isn’t public, and, therefore, whatever change he might represent for this genetic meritocracy can never be fulfilled. We will tamper with Mother Nature, yes, but we will also have to accept and adapt to its vulgar consequences. (Can you tell I’m a not terribly optimistic about genetic testing?) ——————————————————————- *When I say “tame,” I am referring to the concept’s logic, not to the historical treatment of groups based on race or gender. From a conceptual point of view, race and gender, for the most part, are illogical. We know this only because we live in a world where the vast majority of us agree that having different skin or gender does not mean that you are, by default, inferior to another group. The only way to maintain that belief in any pure sense is to intentionally maintain paradoxes in one’s mind — I think these paradoxes are what compels some to violence, since the psyche cannot keep contradictory ideas afloat if such ideas are connected to identity construction.
Retro Nostalgia: Mars Attacks (1996) and Its Detached Timestamp
Long-time viewers of science fiction film will likely recognize Tim Burton’s homage to 50s/60s SF cinema. How could they not? From the narrative undertones of the Cold War’s nuclear fears to its borrowing and twisting of the narrative structure of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and its 1953 adaptation, which helped solidify a developing SF cinematic aesthetic (the Orson Welles radio drama certainly stuck Wells’ terrifying tale of alien invasion in the public consciousness beforehand), the film is in every way a mockery of the 50s and 60s.* But it’s not simply the politics or the narrative that make the 1996 alien invasion comedy Mars Attacks! an amusing bedfellow of or foil to the 1950s (and 60s). Rather, its visuals are an at times direct parody/assault on the material and social logic of the era, despite having no clear temporal placement of its own — after all, the film is neither set in the 1950s, nor the 1990s, and instead merges or maps the span of historical time over itself (a palimpsest). Part of the reason I am mashing the 50s and 60s together here is because Mars Attacks! is never fixed to a specific decade. It is, in a sense, trapped in the limbo of transition between two cultures we like to think as distinct, but which bleed into one another. The Beehive (B-52) hairstyle, after all, didn’t gain popular momentum until the 60s, despite existing as early as 1954. There are times when the film veers a hard right into 60s territory (most notably through cars and the flashy fashion of Vegas that conjures images of a somewhat neutered, caricatured Hunter S. Thompson), but it frequently bounces back, merging the two periods — both understandably important to SF cinema — into one incoherent mishmash. I’ll refer to this as the 50s Transition to save space (roughly the late 50s to the early 60s). A primary example of this assault on 50s Transition culture is the aptly named Martian Girl played by Lisa Marie (seen in the above image). Her swaying, robotic walking style, her absurd hair style (a greatly exaggerated B-52), and her eye-catching pointed breasts are all digs on the visual culture of the 1950s Transition. She is at once a clone of the era and a play on the sex symbol of the era: Marilyn Monroe (minus the hair). Or, perhaps, a mix of Monroe and another female icon of the time: Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The exaggeration of the Martian Girl’s features — to the point of perfect exaggeration, even — seems, in my mind, to make light of the hyper-commercialized culture that arose at the turn of the century and solidified after WW2, one which hyper-sexualized certain “ideal” forms of women, fashion, etc. (or, to put it another way, created a specific set of images for the era that were hyper-sexualized). After all, she is, in every way, a “perfect” 50s Transition girl. Except that she isn’t. She’s a grotesque perfection that draws attention to the fact that she isn’t real. Her features are too perfect. Too exaggerated. Blame it on the aliens for translating their own genetic monoculture onto our own. Much of the film’s fashion aesthetics draw upon the transitional era, almost to comedic effect, sometimes by exaggeration and sometimes by simply cloning things that already existed. Some of this is deliberate. Annette Bening, for example, modeled her performance as Barbara Land on Ann Margret from Viva Las Vegas. The resemblance is clear. This shouldn’t surprise us, of course, because the mish mash was intended by the writers and Burton himself, who imagined Mars Attacks! as an homage to 50s scifi flicks, with a heavy dose of mockery. Whether they intended to critique the culture of the 50s Transition is hard to say. I like to think this was an unintended consequence of transplanting a cultural period into a different cinematic paradigm. Rather than stare with nostalgic eyes at a bygone era, we are compelled to think about what made the 50s Transition fascinating and thankfully dead at the same time. I could probably say more about this topic, but I won’t. That would require tracing all the ways Mars Attacks! explores 50s SF and the 50s Transition period (as mockery, parody, or direct homage). Maybe for another time! ————————————————- *The 1953 adaptation of War of the Worlds was nominated for three Academy Awards and has since been included in the Library of Congress catalogue.
Retro Nostalgia: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), the Hero Scientist, and the Possible Utopia(?)
There’s something truly nostalgic about SF narratives that make the scientist the hero. There aren’t a lot of those narratives left, if we’re honest. Characters use science, sure, but they are rarely the creators of science, or its purveyors. But not the old school SF movies. Oh no. In a lot of those stories, scientists are front and center. They’re occasionally the bad guy, but they’re always the ones figuring things out, discovering the new and amazing things about the world. Even in Forbidden Planet, in which the main scientist is, for all intensive purposes, the villain (well, not really — his id is the villain), the romanticism of science and the scientist is crucial to the plot. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) falls into the positive variety of these pro-scientist films. Most of us know the story, primarily because it was recently remade into what I can only describe as a film without any substance: an alien named Klaatu appears on Earth, which terrifies the hairless ape creatures; Klaatu desperately tried to make humanity listen to him, but in the end, he’s forced to use the threat of annihilation to, we hope, bring humanity in line — for self- preservation of course. Throughout this somewhat dystopian plot — aliens telling us we have to shape up or die is hardly utopian, after all — we are gifted with several reminders that the scientists are the true “rational” ones on Earth (hang in there — I’ll critique this later). There are two perfectly solid examples of this, which I’ll approach in semi-chronological order. First, there’s Dr. Barnhardt, who is effectively the “most intelligent man” in the continental United States (or, at the very least, the smartest man in D.C.). When Klaatu first seeks his help, he discovers the Dr. working on a complicated math equation on a chalkboard — perhaps one of the most common cliches of science given to us by movies (Indiana Jones, anyone?) — the purpose of which is never explained. But the reason Klaatu wants Barnhardt’s help is because the regular folks haven’t exactly been forthcoming. Let’s face it, when your first day on Earth is spent getting shot by a bunch of trigger happy young men riding on tanks, and then shoved into a hospital and kept there against your will, followed by a long-winded explanation that your puny little alien brain — which managed to get you 250,000,000 miles across space — can’t possibly comprehend human politics…well, you’d probably skip town and seek out someone who just has to be rational. And Dr. Barnhardt, it turns out, is supremely rational. He not only has science smarts — though not nearly as much as Klaatu, with all his math magic — but he also recognizes the utter stupidity of provoking an alien race into using violence as a communication method. When violence, trickery, imprisonment, and rampant fear-mongering (hooray yellow journalism) are the societal response to your presence, it makes a lot of sense to respond in kind. But Dr. Barnhardt desperately wants to avoid that. He convinces Klaatu that perhaps a non-violent demonstration would look better and then proceeds to set up a meeting between Mr. Alien and a bunch of unnamed, but certainly important scientists. In other words, the only ones who actually take Klaatu seriously as someone genuinely interested in Earth’s well being are scientists. The military just wants to shove Klaatu under the watchful eyes of unsophisticated, disinterested guards and subject him to nationalistic politics; the scientists want to help Klaatu make his point. Oh, and since I haven’t mentioned it yet, you really can’t avoid the 1951 political message here. By 1951, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were the only countries actively testing nuclear weapons, though certainly not the only ones working on them. The rise of atomic/nuclear weapons so concerned the world that it led to the Cold War (which you all already know) and to Oppenheimer (who worked on the Manhattan Project) declaring the invention of the atomic bomb a grave mistake: We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. Ironically, Klaatu’s race literally became the destroyer of worlds (he’s our second science example, actually). By the end of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Klaatu has no choice but to warn humanity that if they continue on this destructive, nuclear path, they will compel his species to neutralize (annihilate) the Earth for the benefit of everyone else. But in his final speech, he also tells us one crucial fact: science has provided the resolution to the natural inclination towards violence among intelligent life (I interpret his words to suggest that there are other intelligent species out there). Thus, Gort, the “monstrous machine” of the story, is little more than the product of scientists to curb violent tendencies — there are many like it that sit around as a giant deterrent against poor behavior, which has somehow created a peaceful society that is both supremely powerful and disinterested in violence except when the equilibrium of their society is threatened. So much for that narrative about nuclear weapons, right? After all, if the reason behind nuclear armament is to deter your enemy from attacking you, then Gort is little more than a giant, walking robotic nuke (minus the radiation). If we’re honest, this is all a remarkably utopian view of the scientist. So many novels and films have tried to imagine utopian societies and failed miserably, either intentionally or because utopias simply don’t work. But is there something inherently dystopian about creating your own self-“cleaning” agent? If Gort is a society’s solution to
Retro Nostalgia: The Dark Crystal (1982) and the Necessity of a Remake
When I first saw The Dark Crystal over a decade ago, I recall feeling amazed by the story. As kids, I think we have a tendency to open ourselves to imaginative possibilities that adults have closed themselves off to (possibly because adults have “seen it all”). Watching The Dark Crystal as a kid was like jumping headfirst into my own imagination.* Re-watching the film brought back some of those mostly-nostalgic memories, in particular because the world of The Dark Crystal is a fully realized one. There are enormous sets, moving plants and critters, unique characters, and astonishing puppetry. It’s hard not to marvel at how much effort went into making this film. The problem? Time has not been kind to Jim Henson’s 1982 classic. Unlike The Labyrinth, which survives its ancient green screen and sometimes stiff puppetry largely because it is a quirky fantasy flick for kids, The Dark Crystal simply doesn’t hold up as well. The stiff puppetry, a product of the time more than anything else, reminds us that we’re looking at, well, puppets; to suspend disbelief, we have to trick our minds in ways we generally wouldn’t have to. This is true of almost all of the characters, with exception to Fizzgig, whose rambunctious behavior offers a few purely comical moments.** The rest? Stiff. Their mouths barely move and their facial expressions are limited. That said, you’ll find nuance in the bodily movements of the characters; the puppet masters — ha! — did their best to make up for the lackluster facial performances by turning those bodies into canvases all on their own. I’ll never have that kind of skill, which is why I admire it so. I say this not because I think The Dark Crystal is a bad movie. To say that, I would have to dislike much about The Labyrinth, even if I acknowledge that the latter receives some leeway due to tone. For its time, The Dark Crystal was ambitious, to say the least. It took all the glamour of the Jim Henson puppeteer studios and merged it with the mythical narratives of epic fantasy. Critics were right to liken it to a Muppet version of a Tolkien story (The Hobbit, perhaps). It has the right kind of characters, world, and elements to facilitate an epic fantasy narrative, right down even to the somewhat cliche “chosen one” plot line. Most of these things work in its favor. The film made $30mil in profit, though its sequel, Power of the Dark Crystal, has been in development limbo since the 80s, and it remains one of the highest grossing Henson films ever made. I bring all this up because I think that it’s time someone remade The Dark Crystal. Hear me out, if you will. I’m not a fan of remakes. In fact, I think most remakes shouldn’t exist, though the almighty dollar will keep them coming for decades to come. But The Dark Crystal is the type of film that would benefit from modern technology, set design, budgets, and so on, in part because its original format, though beautiful for its time, has not aged particularly well (and don’t get me started on the annoying voice over that explains everything that has happened in the world up to the start of the narrative proper). Contemporary puppetry, when properly funded, can produce more advanced characters and designs with developed facial features and facial mobility. Those characters who seem somewhat stiff will come to life in a way they never have before. The result? Characters we all can easily connect to. We’ll still know they’re puppets, but we’ll suspend our disbelief more readily if the characters look, move, and act like real people. Just look at what they did for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (skip to 7:05): And that’s not even the best they could have done. With advances in animatronic technologies and so on and so forth, you could create characters that practically cry on their own. Throw in a little CG to help blend the sets and character together — and no more than “a little” — and you’ve got a mixture for what might be the most ambitious remake ever conceived. Of course, if Hollywood tried to remake The Dark Crystal, they’d probably CG everything and leave out the puppetry — assuming the Henson company would let them. I think this would be a grave mistake, but it’s not like Hollywood is afraid to send out stinkers and pretty everything up with lens flares and explosions these days. My only hope is that remaking The Dark Crystal will do honor to the original and add new life to a world that deserves the best adaptation possible. There’s so much to love about The Dark Crystal, from its classic heroic quest to its complete absence of human characters*** to its settings, scenery, and depth. Who wouldn’t want to see it re-imagined once more? This is where everyone chimes in with their thoughts. Do you think a remake of The Dark Crystal would be a good idea? This is the most adorable character in the entire movie. Fizzgig! —————————————————– *No wonder I couldn’t get enough of Fraggle Rock as a kid… **He’s sort of like a dog thing. It’s hard to explain. ***If not for the fact that I desperately want to see this film remade, I might have talked about the curious absence of human characters in The Dark Crystal. Perhaps for another time…