More than 30 years after his passing, Jim Henson’s attention to detail continues to impress viewers who discover his work. According to his daughter Lisa, the current CEO of the Jim Henson Company, that’s something that helps his movies look better, not worse, in the ultra-high resolution that has become standard in recent years. While some movies from the ’80s might suffer under a 4K remaster that calls attention to the artificiality of costumes and sets, Henson explains that The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, which are both now available on 4K from Shout Studios, have the opposite effect.
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The quality of craftsmanship that went into creating the puppets for Jim Henson’s projects can’t be duplicated in CG, according to Lisa Henson. She says that the perfect textures provided by computers won’t ever be as real as something that exists in the world and is made to a high standard.
“It’s possible that you might be able to see a little more of how things are done, you might be able to see a thread here or there, but what you will see, that you couldn’t see when the definition wasn’t as good are the textures,” Henson explained. “There’s no way a CG texture can beat a real texture. So when you see how these puppets are made, and how beautiful the costumes are, and the level of detail, that’s the richness that’s impossible to duplicate with CG.”
Henson’s 1982 masterpiece The Dark Crystal and 1986’s beloved Labyrinth first became a part of ’80s kids’ everyday lives on VHS, a format where low resolution and frequent degradation made it easy for B movies from studios like Charles Band’s Full Moon to hide “the strings,” so to speak. Many of the movies that first became hits in the VHS era struggles with 4K transfers that make it clear the actors are standing on a set — but in the case of Henson’s movies, so much attention went into the costumes, puppets, and sets that the higher resolution makes the movies feel more real, as audiences can tell the sets are huge and dynamic, not just a corner someplace that has been set up to facilitate the shot.
Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal are available to purchase or rent digitally in 4K for the first time on February 6th. The 4K Blu-ray is currently on sale here on Amazon.
