There was a time when the latest big budget fantasy adventure didn’t mean CGI monsters or 3D glasses that don’t fit over my regular glasses.  There was a time when a good family friendly fantasy film meant just two things: Puppets and Quests.  We called that time the 80’s and it was glorious.

Bowie was there! What more could you need?!

But as special effects technology improves the film making techniques of the past become lost arts.  Computer animation has rendered the art of Puppets and Quest films all but lost in modern cinema.   Unless you are Guillermo del Toro.

*sob* DON’T LOOK AT ME! *sob*

If someone had handed Jim Henson The Hobbit in 1986 he would have done the whole thing in an hour and a half, added songs and there would have been Muppets! Muppets galore I tell you!

Just because the hay-day of the Puppets and Quest genre has passed that doesn’t mean that those films are forgotten.  I would say that they are anything but forgotten.  I, like many members of my generation, grew up on those movies and even now, long after I left the target age range, I still sometimes get together with my friends to watch them.  Marathoning through a four or five of these still makes a pretty awesome Friday night.  Nostalgia and beer are a winning combo.

The impact that these films had on the fantasy genre is still being seen today, so lets take a look back and appreciate them for the master works (and sometimes master disasters) that they are!

Time Bandits – 1981

Time Bandits follows a boy, Kevin, who’s sleep is interrupted by a group of dwarves entering his bed room through a hole in space and time.  They have a map of the holes in the universe, that they use to travel through time and steal wealth from the past.  Kevin ends up tagging along on their adventure as they are perused by a sorcerer, simply named Evil, who wants the map for himself.

Terry Gilliam has directed some strange movies over the years.  Not surprising, considering he got his start as a member of Monty Python.  He has made cult favorites like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, thrillers like 12 Monkeys, and quirky adventures like The Brothers Grimm and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.  He has a distinct visual style that can be seen throughout his body of work.  A sort of jitteryness that is fascinating and almost uncomfortable.   His next film, The Zero Theorem, about a computer hacker’s search for the meaning of life, is due out at the end of the year.

The Dark Crystal – 1982

Whenever I mention my love for The Dark Crystal someone tells me about how it gave them nightmares as a kid.  It followed Jen, an elf like being on his quest to reunite a divided society by returning a missing shard of a sacred crystal to its proper place.  Along the way he makes new friends and fends off strange monsters.

It is easily the darkest of the films directed by Muppet creator Jim Henson, and represents some of the most monstrous creatures to ever come out of his puppet studio.  This attempt to take the Muppet Workshop in a bold new direction was bit too extreme for the family friendly studio, so their next adventure film (appearing later in this list) lightened things up a lot.  The intense visual style and wild new designs were still an important step the advancement of Jim Henson Studios.