Black(toy)bird singing in the dead of night

Hello sociology enthusiast, welcome to another edition of: Meet the Geek. This week, we are going to discuss how geeks are usually polytheists. This is a conversation that might take place between to subjects of the species known as The Geek.

Wild Geek 1: How 'bout Josh Whedon?
Wild Geek 2: Man, Josh Whedon is GOD!
Wild Geek 1: Are you going to see Alice in Wonderland?
Wild Geek 2: Sure man, Tim Burton is GOD!
Wild Geek 1: Finished Sandman last night...
Wild Geek 2: Really? Neil Gaiman is GOD, man, GOD!

And so on and so forth... of course the problem with The Geek is that they can never agree about the gods they follow as a tribe, for example:

Wild Geek 1: Man, George Lucas is GOD!
Wild Geek 2: Are you crazy man? Gene Roddenberry is GOD!

That's why I can say without the shadow of a doubt that some of you will back me up when I say "JIM HENSON IS GOD!"

And all that introduction is because today I'll be talking about this:



That's NECA's Chamberlain from the movie The Dark Crystal, directed by Jim Henson in 1982. Let me sum up the story for you: The Dark Crystal is about the journey of a boy-like thing (actually a puppet) called Jen, he's a Galfling (not to be confused with a halfling because of copyright issues). Jen kinda reminds you the Na'vi from Avatar... Except he's not blue, and he's sort of small not gigantic, and he's the last of his kind, and he exist in the real world, and his acting didn't suck... (OK, so maybe he's not like the Na'vi from Avatar, sorry I brought it up).



So, there was this race of Ugly-as-fuck super creatures that lived in harmony with the world and the powerful Dark Crystal, but when the Crystal broke, the creatures were divided into two Semi-ugly-almost-as-fuck creatures: the Mystics, good guys that looked like camel lizards and the Skeksis, ugly bird-dragons that are, of course, the villains of the movie.


"Polly wanna cracker... And your soul!"

There will be a lot of bird jokes in this post, because when I was a kid, the dragon nature of the Skeksis was lost to me, I just saw evil vulture-like birds. The Chamberlain is incredibly well sculpted, he shows his bird side perfectly, he's clearly evil, the detail of the ragged clothes is very well done and molded in soft rubbery plastic to give the impression of cloth, and his (somewhat flabby) dragon side is there too, but you have to be a little more thorough to find it...



One of the greatest things about the Chamberlain was his evil raspy voice. The responsible was non other than Master Yoda himself, Frank Oz. The figure is really good, looks great in my movie display and the best part is that it was a gift for X-Mas! The other great thing about The Chamberlain is that he automatically turns any innocent situation in an evil situation!



The Chamberlain is a devious character that wasn't even liked in his own tribe, he was exiled (and stripped naked) in the middle of the film. Is not a mystery why NECA decided to make only this Dark Crystal figure and not the others (good or evil), because the one that you remember after watching this master piece is non other than the good old Chamberlain.

There's a sequel called The Power of the Dark Crystal that is announced to premiere in 2011. Apparently it will happen hundreds of years after the first story, it will be done by a first time director and it will be written by the guy that did... Moulin Rouge, Romeo+Juliet and a movie with Zac Efron? Yeah, it's probably going to suck.

More bird jokes:



Until next time. EVIL!