The Dark Crystal Connection
First, kudos and shout out to the first bloggers who brought forth this amazing connection between the ST and this hauntingly beautiful 1982 movie whose main message was: evil and good must unite because out of their division comes death and decay. Sounds familiar? Maybe there is a lesson learned there. Because Frank Oz, one of the chief engineers of that beautiful movie that entirely puzzled me as a child, also worked on the original trilogy. So it would come full circle, in a poetic way, if the ST reflects some of his work. @karlaaaay for instance points out, very cleverly that the code name for episode ix, Black Diamond, might be just that: a clever reference to Dark Crystal. The idea has definitely some merit, even though we can also keep in mind what the gem also stands for (I did one of my first posts on that). But let’s give Dark Crystal a try.
Ok, so what about the similarities, what elements have we seen, and what could we infer from there? So we have a kingdom divided between the Good pottery and music loving Mystics on one side and the evil, power driven Skeksis on the other. The Skeksis live in a castle built around a purple crystal that was shattered long ago. They commit genocides, exploit and enslave creatures that they use to steal their essences in order to stay alive. Both Mystics and Skeksis are a dying race whose fates are intertwined: each time one of them dies, death comes to one of the other side. A prophecy states that a gelfling (a race that has been almost exterminated by the Skeksis) will destroy the Skeksis and repair the Crystal. As it turns out, the fate of this world lies in the hand of a couple of gelflings, Jen and Kira, who both thought they were the last of their kind. They finally restore the missing shard of the crystal and Skeksis and Mystic are fused together into creatures of light, bringing back peace, harmony, and life.
As @karlaaaay pointed out, the names Jen and Kira have some resonance for the new trilogy. Jen is reminiscent of Ben and Kira was the name originally used for the character of Rey. But it is highly debatable if Jen is Ben and Kira is Rey as I will stress out later. It is hard not to miss all the similarities though. You have the Skeksis with a dying emperor, their feuds of succession and power, their armies of armored creatures and flying spies, so pretty much the First Order. And you have the Mystic, peace loving creatures, living like hermits in nature, who adopt and teach a young one that may be the chosen one to bring back balance to the world, so pretty much Obi Wan, Luke and Yoda. When the emperor of the Skeksis dies, his body is shattered and crumbles to pieces, like Snoke in the throne room. When the leader of the Mystic dies, his body vanishes into thin air like Obi Wan, Yoda, and Luke. The emperor clings desperately to life (I am still the Emperor) like Snoke affirms being unbeaten and unbetrayed at the very moment he is. The Mystic accept their death with peace and serenity like all the characters afore mentioned.
Another character that seems to have been transplanted straight from Dark Crystal is Maz Kanata. In the Dark Crystal, Jen has to go see Augrah in order to find the missing shard that he is supposed to return to the Crystal. Augrah is a thousand years old, has terrible sight since she only has one eye that she can remove and put back as she pleases, and besides owning a significant piece of the puzzle, has more questions to offer than answers: “you want to know what it is all about?”, “too many questions “, “there is much to learn and you have no time”. Sounds familiar yet? Maz is the same age, is pretty much defined by her huge glasses, holds Anakin’s lightsaber for some mysterious reason, and also delivers lines like “a good question for another time”. Besides, Augrah’s mysterious cave is attacked by the Skeksis army just after Jen’s arrival, like Maz’s castle is attacked right after Rey’s arrival. And Jen happens to run in a forest to cross the path of two significant characters right after fleeing Augrah ‘s cave: the banished Chamberlain who is following him from a distance, and Kira, the other gelfling and future love interest. When Rey flees into the forest, who does she meet but Kylo Ren? So if we follow the parallels between the two stories, Jen’s journey is more reminiscent of Rey’s journey. At the same time, Rey, like Kira, is followed by a little companion, since in TFA she is followed by BB8 until she meets Kylo. And like Kira, Rey is able to understand and communicate with many different creatures. So you could say that Rey is a mix of both Jen and Kira.
Yet, how does Kylo Ren fit in? When Kira and Jen meet for the first time and touch hands, they exchange immediately all their memories, something called dream fasting. In TLJ, something rather similar happens to Kylo and Rey as the Force brings them together and they start having flash forwards when their hands meet for the first time. But Jen and Kira are a unit from the get go, they are the last of their species. Kylo and Rey could be similar because they are also the last of their species in a way, they are the last Jedi (even though it turns out others are Force sensitive), they feel constantly alone, which makes them akin to each other. And when they are able to function together, in the throne room, they form a great partnership. But, remember that in the forest, also lurked the banished Skeksis. So when Rey meets Ben, she meets her other half but she also meets her opponent. Kylo is the gelfling but also the rogue Skeksis, the one that does not belong, has been brutally victimized, and strives for power and revenge. One line from the Chamberlain is also a give away. When he tries to lure the gelfling back to the castle, seeing he is failing, he keeps on pleading: Please? please? So, to me, Kylo is both the gefling and the Skeksis.
Another important element would be the shattered crystal. I think it could be 2 different things here. It is hard not to see a wink between the shattered crystal and Kylo’s shattered kyber crystal in his lightsaber. And because the saber is so much a part of his identity, it is also hard not to see this shattered unstable saber as a metaphor for his shattered unstable identity. So Kylo is the Dark Crystal of sorts. He is the pure power that has turned to the Dark side because something is shattered in him, because something misses to make him whole again. What is missing? Something Rey, like Jen and Kira, could bring him: the healing power of Love. And Rey, as his other half, has the power of making him whole, just like he has the power of making her feeling whole again. Together they are no longer alone. Just like Jen reacts to Kira: “I thought I was the only one”.
But the Dark Crystal could also stand for the Force itself, that has been shattered between the Dark side and the Light side, something that after thousands of years, is finally not satisfactory. What is the solution? They have fought each other, Sith and Jedi almost extinct. Kylo’s solution would be to let them die, to kill the past. But there is another solution that has not been attempted yet, and it is to fuse the two together, like at the end of Dark Crystal. Maybe Rey will realize that, or maybe that will just come from them coming together as they are.
The final element that the movies have in common is the prophecy of the chosen one. In Dark Crystal, a gelfling is supposed to restore the shard and save the world. In the PT, Anakin is proposed as the chosen one, the one that will restore balance to the Force. Failure. Luke is a likely candidate. Failure. If the chosen has to be a Skywalker, Kylo is the last in line. Maybe he is the chosen one, maybe Rey is the chosen one by helping him figuring out who he really is, maybe they both are and their coming together will restore the balance.
The end of the Dark Crystal shows that restoring balance between the conflicting natures of good and evil demands a sacrifice. But once the sacrifice is accomplished, and order is restored, peace, light, and life are restored. The lines uttered by the pure being of light at the end of the movie, as Jen is carrying the lifeless body of Kira, would fit right at the end of the saga:
Now the prophecy is fulfilled. We are again one. Many ages ago, in our arrogance and delusion, we shattered the pure Crystal and our world split apart.Your courage and sacrifice have made us whole and restored the true power of the crystal. Hold her to you, she is a part of you, as we are all a part of each other.
Kira is brought back to life
Now we leave you a crystal of truth. Make your world in its light.
We have already got the line about delusion and arrogance from Luke when he talks about the Jedi. We know that both sides have erred. Replace crystal with Force and you get the picture. Kylo’s insistance about killing the past may also be prophetic of the fact that one of them has to die in an act of pure selfless sacrifice to save/help the other. Can the Force bring a person back to life? If the ST is inspired by the Dark Crystal, it might just happen. And it would be a beautiful end to the saga to see the Force restored and whole, and these two, part of each other, able to create a new generation of Force users, a new world.
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