Fans have been patient for decades to see the world of The Dark Crystal return, and with the show, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, coming to Netflix later this year, the streaming service brought the show to Hall H at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. But what did we see there? Well, young reader, I’ll regale you with the tale of the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance panel.

Interestingly, the panel started off with them showing the teaser trailer we’d already seen weeks ago, leaving me to wonder whether or not we’d be seeing more footage…anyway…

The panel:

Lisa Henson (executive producer)

Louis Leterrier (director/executive producer)

Taron Egerton

Mark Hamill understandably entered to immense applause.

Taron Egerton said he first watched the film when he was five or six, and he is thrilled to be joining the project. Hamill noted how daring and dark it was compared to other puppet-based series, and he compared it to the creepy film Return to Oz, which was criticized for being too dark. Hamill went on to say that the script for the series is quite excellent, and that he can’t wait to see it.

Egerton said he loved how frightened the original movie made him and how unique and edgy it was when he was a kid.

We then saw a new making-of clip, which really dives into the crafting aspect of the puppetry. 

Egerton describes his character, a Gelfling Rian, who makes a discovery about his community that shakes his whole world and sends him on a journey (it was all very vague). 

Hamill discussed his playing of another villain and went on a tangent about how his agent wished he’d gotten the role of Alfred in Batman: The Animated Series, because the character was in every episode. Clearly, this is a man who loves what he does and has no problem being typecast as a villain in voice-over.

Growing up, Mark Hamill wondered at what age you were supposed to stop loving comics, Muppets, and the like, and celebrates his ability to do what he loves to this day.

From there, Hamill talked the audience through the process of how the voice-over works, doing warm-ups and then doing “presence passes” when they perform grunts and vocal efforts over the footage. 

RELATED – The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance Trailer Reveals A Gorgeous World

Lisa Henson reminisced working as P.A. on the set of the original film, where everything there was being innovated at the time. She said the world of Thra was created very in-depth, and it’s something that all paid off for this film. They recovered a lot of the old puppets from storage and museums and copied them to get warmed up.

Louis Leterrier said The Dark Crystal was the most important puppet film of all time, and that it would be unthinkable for them to try and replicate the experience in CG. “Every shot is the most difficult shot of my career, and every shot is my nightmare,” Leterrier joked about the process.

When asked why they decided to come back to this world after all this time, Lisa Henson highlighted how special the project was for her father, who found it to be his most personal film. Because of that and her love of the property from fans, it was something she looked forward to returning to. She went on to say the series ended up better than she’d hoped.

When asked about working with Mark Hamill, Taron Egerton recalled he was crestfallen that he didn’t share any scenes with him in Kingsman: The Secret Service. “I mean, he’s Luke f**king Skywalker!” he exclaimed.

What followed was a Q&A with a few cute moments…but nothing super worth replicating here.

Mark Hamill received the 2019 Comic-Con Icon Award due to his contributions to pop culture, not just as an icon, but as a constant supporter of geek culture across many mediums.

They then shared the first episode of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance…which I wasn’t able to see.

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