Toxic avarice, environmentalism, slavery, the power of love, the importance of respect for your fellow creature, ethnic cleansing—all of these still-relevant topics are threaded throughout The Dark Crystal in 1982 Jim Henson/Frank Oz puppet-and-animatronic story form. It follows a pair of elf-like Gelflings, the last of their kind, as they embark on a dangerous quest to restore balance to their world by returning a lost shard to the powerful but broken gem of the film’s title. It was one of my favorites as a kid (my tastes skewed morbid), and now that Netflix is releasing that prequel series from the Jim Henson Company, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (available for streaming August 30), now is a good time to get refreshed on the original. by Leilani Polk