I grew up with a lot of movies that were considered failures.
Movies like Follow that Bird, and Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.
I am not alone.
Many millions of us grew up on these movies.
On Deviantart, people cosplay Crysta from Ferngully.
These movies were not big blockbuster hits in the box office.
Neither was Citizen Kane.
And yet no one would consider Citizen Kane a failure.
When I was a kid, there were so many movies that we grew up with that were not big hits in the box office, but which had become beloved favorites by millions over the years through video sales and television broadcasts.
Movies that were successes in the same way as the Grateful Dead- only as family movies.
Among these were some of the great non-Disney animated movies of the early 90's, like Ferngully and An American Tail 2: Feivel Goes West, which has the same historical truth as the original: the story of America part 2- the immigrants go west.
Many of these movies were and are a fundamental influence upon me as an artist.
There is no small bit of Ferngully in my work.
And among the movies that I, among many, grew up with as a kid were many movies by the genius himself- Jim Henson, along with Steven Spielberg the greatest genius Hollywood ever produced- that Jim Henson himself probably considered failures.
I grew up with The Dark Crystal among many millions of others even as Jim Henson still considered the movie a failure.
I also grew up with The Muppets Take Manhattan and the Sesame Street movie Follow That Bird, which succeeded in recapturing the magic of Jim Henson's finest moment, even above The Dark Crystal perhaps, the original Muppet Movie.
And these two movies succeeded in recapturing the magic of the original Muppet Movie through Frank Oz's greatest masterstroke as a director- for it was he who decided that The Muppets Take Manhattan should focus on character, and this was the key for not only The Muppets Take Manhattan but Follow that Bird the very next year to recapture the magic of the original Muppet Movie- a movie Jim no doubt originally intended as a one-time experiment, with no thought of doing it again a second time until, two years after the supposed failure of The Dark Crystal, as millions of us- many adults included- lived and breathed the supposed failure, The Dark Crystal, as part of our lives, Frank Oz presented to Jim the key to recapturing the magic of that original Muppet Movie.
Although The Muppets Take Manhattan and Follow that Bird were not successes at the box office either, millions of us grew up with those movies as well.
And this is a legitimate kind of success.
Indie success.
Jim Henson himself is more of an indie filmmaker.
Jim Henson's comedy has lots of crossover popular appeal.
But Jim Henson's serious side is all indie.
This is why The Dark Crystal was not a blockbuster hit.
Because The Dark Crystal is an indie movie.
So if you are an artist like me, remember- blockbuster pop success is not the only kind of success!
For as Jim Henson mourned the failure of The Dark Crystal, millions of us had that same movie as a fundamental part of our lives.
And decades after Ferngully was considered a 'dismal' failure in the box office, people on Deviantart cosplay Crysta from Ferngully alongside Link from The Legend of Zelda and other legendary beloved characters.
This is not failure.
This is success.
Success counted in millions of lives.
God loves you! Keep up the good work and look to the light!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson