The Jim Henson Presentation at Comic-Con

From: ComingSoon.net

We attended the Jim Henson presentation Friday evening at the San Diego Comic-Con. On the panel were Lisa Henson, Michael Polis, fairy expert and The Dark Crystal designer Brian Froud, sequel director Genndy Tartakovsky, and visual effects whiz Scott Stewart.

Finally, the presentation turned to discussion of the Dark Crystal sequel - Power of the Dark Crystal. Michael Polis and Lisa Henson described how fans kept asking them for a sequel and that prompted them to ask the script writer if he had any ideas for a sequel. The script writer remembered a conversation he had with Jim Henson where they laid out story ideas. Rather than doing the further adventures of the Gelflings, they wanted to go farther in the world and this film reflects that. Tartakovsky said how they intend to do a mix of puppets and CGI. They intend to use the CG effects to remove puppeteers from the images and free up the puppets to do "real puppet action". All panelists agreed Jim Henson would approve of the use of the technology.

A few concept art pieces were quickly flashed on the screen. The previously seen elderly Kira was shown. They showed a new female creature named "Thurma" who is a fire creature from the underworld. Next up was a male creature from above the earth named Kensho. The two have an adventure under the surface in the "Innerworld". We saw pictures of caverns, crystals, underground lakes, and huge monsters. Not much more was said about the sequel film. A kid asked if the Gelflings would be married and Froud joked that it was possible they had been "living in sin". Tartakovsky also said that he'd love to have Frank Oz involved in some capacity if he could.

Lisa Henson also confirmed that they were in the early stages of doing a Fraggle Rock movie, but it was a long way off. She also said they don't have any plans yet for a Labyrinth sequel - they are focused on "Dark Crystal."