Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. I finally watched this film so I guess that my childhood is complete. In all seriousness, I saw Babel after The Dark Crystal, which made me appreciate the latter more. The Dark Crystal creates a completely new world that is interconnected and has great depth. I cared about every character. And though I am not huge on this kind of puppetry, especially without David Bowie appearing and singing, I have to say that there was a singular, committed vision that was not pretentious or condescending to its audience or subjects, which is spectacular considering it is a kids movie. Actually everything is definitively not alright yet there is an emotional authenticity to every character regardless of whether or not the viewer cares for the character or not.