The Dark Crystal was produced by Gary Kurtz, while the screenplay was written by David Odell, with whom Henson previously worked as a staff writer for The Muppet Show.

[7] An Emmy Award-winning prequel television series, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, premiered on Netflix in 2019 and ran for one season.

As the Great Conjunction of the world's three suns draws near, the dying Mystic Master instructs Jen to fulfill a prophecy to heal the crystal by first retrieving a missing shard from Aughra.

They break free and attack the Scientist, who deflects the draining prism before falling into the fiery crystal shaft; on a rocky plain, the Mystic Alchemist vanishes in flames.

The Garthim disintegrate and the drained Podlings regain their vitality while the dark stone covering the castle crumbles to reveal a crystalline structure.

But he thought it opened up a whole different way of looking at reality, which I think was one of his goals in the making of The Dark Crystal.Henson's inspiration for the visual aspects of the film came around 1975–76,[9] after he saw an illustration by Leonard B. Lubin in a 1975 edition of Lewis Carroll's poetry showing crocodiles living in a palace and wearing elaborate robes and jewelry.

[10] According to co-director Frank Oz, Henson's intention was to "get back to the darkness of the original Grimms' Fairy Tales", as he believed that it was unhealthy for children to never be afraid.

[8] Henson's original concept was set in a world called Mithra, a wooded land with talking mountains, walking boulders and animal-plant hybrids.

The original plot involved a malevolent race called the Reptus group, which took power in a coup against the peaceful Eunaze, led by Malcolm the Wise.

Henson kept multiple copies of the book Seth Speaks, and insisted that Froud and screenwriter David Odell read it prior to collaborating for the film.

This idea was dropped after test screening audiences found the captions too distracting, but the original effect can be observed in selected scenes on the various DVD releases.

Both Jen's dying Mystic master and the Ritual Guardian were performed by Brian Muehl, a recurring puppeteer on Sesame Street at the time, and many of the other Mystic performers would go on to work on the Star Wars film Return of the Jedi, as would two of the Skeksis' puppeteers, Mike Quinn (Slave Master) and Tim Rose (Treasurer).

"[18] Each Skeksis was conceived as having a different "job" or function, thus each puppet was draped in multicolored robes meant to reflect their personalities and thought processes.

[19] The Mystics were the hardest creatures to perform, as the actors had to walk on their haunches with their right arm extended forward, with the full weight of the head on it.

In selecting a voice actor for Aughra, Henson was inspired by Zero Mostel's performance as a "kind of insane bird trying to overcome Tourettes syndrome" on Watership Down.

He shot all the footage with a "light flex", a unit placed in front of the camera which gave a faint color tint to each scene in order to give the film a more fairy tale atmosphere similar to Froud's original paintings.

[23] The Dark Crystal was released in 858 theaters in North America on December 17, 1982 and finished third for the weekend with a gross of $4,657,335, behind Tootsie and The Toy, performing better than some people expected.

[24] In its initial weekends, it had a limited appeal with some audiences for various reasons, including parental concerns about its dark nature when contrasted with Henson's family-friendly Muppet franchise.

[28] The film received a mixed response upon its original release, but has earned a more positive reception in later years, becoming a favorite with fans of Henson and fantasy.

"[30] Kevin Thomas gave it a more positive assessment in the Los Angeles Times: "Unlike many screen fantasies, The Dark Crystal casts its spell from its very first frames and proceeds so briskly that it's over before you realize it.

"[32] Variety praised the film as "a dazzling technological and artistic achievement ...that could teach a lesson in morality to youngsters at the same time it is entertaining their parents.

"[33] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote the main characters were "the softest and potentially weakest figures" in the film, but nevertheless, "The Dark Crystal leaves no doubt that Jim Henson and his colleagues have reached a point where they can create and sustain a powerfully enchanting form of cinematic fantasy.

"[35] Colin Greenland, reviewing for Imagine magazine, stated that "The Dark Crystal is a technical masterpiece with splendid special effects work by a team two dozen strong.

The website's critical consensus reads: "The Dark Crystal's narrative never quite lives up to the movie's visual splendor, but it remains an admirably inventive and uniquely intense entry in the Jim Henson canon.

[53] However, faced with considerable delays, the Jim Henson Company announced a number of significant changes in a May 2010 press release: It was going to partner with Australia-based Omnilab Media to produce the sequel, screenwriter Craig Pearce had reworked Odell and Duffy's script, and directing team Michael and Peter Spierig were replacing Tartakovsky.

[54] During a panel held at the Museum of the Moving Image on September 18, 2011, to commemorate the legacy of Jim Henson, his daughter Cheryl revealed that the project was yet again on hiatus.

[55] By February 2012 Omnilab Media and the Spierig brothers had parted ways with the Henson Company due to budgetary concerns; production on the film has been suspended indefinitely.

[58] Legends of the Dark Crystal, an original English-language manga written by Barbara Kesel with art by Heidi Arnhold, Jessica Feinberg, and Max Kim, was published by Tokyopop.

Its story is set hundreds of years before the events of The Dark Crystal, after the Great Conjunction which saw the splitting of the urSkeks into the Mystics and the Skeksis, but before the extermination of the Gelflings.

In May 2017, it was announced that The Jim Henson Company in association with Netflix would produce a prequel series titled The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.