The Skeksis are too ridiculous to be scary. Tim Curry as the Devil in LEGEND and David Bowie as the Goblin King in LABYRINTH are definitely much more intimidating. But if you want REAL TERROR look up the biographies of the real life counterparts of the hoodlums in GOODFELLAS and CASINO.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
yeah ok, obviously compare some fantasy creatures to real life counterparts of movie gangsters. well done.
'All for one and one for all! You go first, I've got a bad leg.'
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I apologize for not making my point clear, that point being that
THE DARK CRYSTAL is not an effective fantasy movie.
The plot is nothing but an unimaginative copy of LORD OF THE RINGS.
The Mystics, supposedly the good guys, are nondescript and unmemorable.
As for the Skeksis, the reaction of a poster on a Youtube video of the banquet scene is that the uncouth table manners of the Skeksis reminded him of the table manners of his own family.
If that is the reaction that those purported embodiments of evil inspire, then clearly the Skeksis are a failure as villains.
Again, I apologize for not making my point more understandable.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
The film wasn't geared at adults, you nitwit. For children the Skeksis are a bit scary, but they weren't meant to scare them right out of the theatre. Did you expect them to look like Pinhead and perform vivisections on the Gelflings or something? Sheesh, this is a movie for children, and a LITTLE scary is what they were meant to be.
If your nose runs and your feet smell, you were built upside down.
At the theater I was at back in 1982 some very young children actually WERE literally lead out of the theater in tears by their parents.
shareThe scariness is in what they did and how they acted, not in how they looked. They imprisoned beings and made them slaves, they destroyed lives and property to maintain themselves and their evil power. It sounds to me like you have become desensitized to violence and destruction in movies. Try to imagine what the characters were going through in this movie. Then maybe the Skeksis will seem more scary to you.
shareJust curious, at what age did you first see the movie and/or come to your conclusion?
I ask because I remember seeing it as a little kid and feeling they are horrible and scary creatures who did bad things to other creatures and looked disgusting, and even turned on themselves.
The draining of the essence scene was a really frightening scene for me when I first saw it in the mid-1980s or so. I had never seen anything like it but I knew something awful was happening. I remember it put me off from wanting to see it again for years because of that scene.
The other thing is that watching it as an adult I can fully understand what the Skeksis are saying and doing, and some of the subtle comedy and stuff going on, which was completely over my head as a kid. A kid sees more of how disgusting they look and how they do horrible things to cute little things.
So it really should be considered from a child's point of view.