THRA WARS
SOMEWHERE, IN AN old industrial warehouse near Slough…
It’s May 2018 and SFX is getting Fraggle Rock flashbacks. Not so much for that famous bassline as for the sight of a mundane building being revealed as the gateway to a magical fantasy world. Because this former storeroom and Post Office depot, spectacular only for its ordinariness, contains a secret invisible to anyone outside – it’s been taken over by The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance, Netflix’s epic prequel to Jim Henson’s groundbreaking, dark and unconventional 1982 fantasy movie.
As we move around the show’s production headquarters, there’s something unusual lurking behind (almost) every door. Okay, some simply open on to production offices or editing suites, while another reveals the drum kit Louis Leterrier (director of all 10 episodes of the season) uses to chill out. But the contents of most rooms are light years from what you’ll find in most offices: armouries loaded with tiny weapons; a stunning, old-school matte painting depicting the evocatively titled Endless Forest; a complex working model of a foreign solar system that would get Professor Brian Cox inordinately excited; and exotic wildlife you won’t see in any zoo.
In one particular menagerie, a dinosaur-like
