Jim Henson

The film begins with a group of birds that are part of an organization called 'The Feathered Friends.' Their topic of the day: Big Bird. The organization feels that Big Bird should be placed with a family of birds, seeing as he appears to be an orphan. The organization approves for it's representative Miss Finch to help Big Bird. Miss Finch arrives on Sesame Street, and soon convinces Big Bird that he should be with a bird family. The announcement comes as a sad goodbye to Big Bird's friends, who consider themselves his family. Soon afterwards, Big Bird arrives in Ocean View, Illinois, where he is introduced to his new family: The Do-Do's. Big Bird tries to get along with his new family, but he still feels homesick. One day, a large postcard arrives from Mr Snuffleupagus, wanting to visit. The Do-Do's laugh at the notion that Big Bird has friends that are not birds. Their words upset Big Bird, who then decides to run away back to Sesame Street. Big Bird's friends hear of his 'flight' on TV, as well as a statement by Miss Finch who vows to find Big Bird and return him to the Do-Do's. The next day, Big Bird's friends take action, setting out by car and plane to find him. Along the way, Big Bird soon tires of walking, and hitches a ride with a turkey farmer. After some time, Big Bird ends up on a farm, where he befriends two children. After spending the night in their barn, he helps them with their chores the next day. However, Big Bird flees when Miss Finch is seen nearby. Eventually, Big Bird makes his way to a city called Toadstool. But Miss Finch is not too far behind, and Big Bird has to flee once again. On the outskirts of Toadstool, Big Bird meets a pair of no-goods called The Sleaze Brothers. Offering to hide Big Bird from Miss Finch, Big Bird soon realizes he is trapped when the brothers refuse to let him go. Smelling a lucrative deal on their hands, the brothers paint Big Bird blue, and tout him as 'The Bluebird of Happiness.' However, Big Bird's stage song is one of sadness, in which he sings of being home with his friends. After the show, two children meet him backstage, where he explains for them to call Sesame Street, and tell them where he is. The next day, Big Bird's friends sneak into the circus tent to free him. However, the Sleaze Brothers take off before they can rescue him. Gordon and Olivia give chase, and help release Big Bird, before the two Sleaze Brothers are pulled over and charged with a long string of illegal practices and felonies. Soon afterwards, Big Bird returns to Sesame Street amid cheers from his friends, but soon grows worried when Miss Finch shows up, promising to try and place him with another 'bird family.' Maria strongly rebuffs Miss Finch's decision, claiming that on Sesame Street, there are all kinds of people and things, and they are all happy together, even if they aren't all the same. After hearing Maria's testimony, and realizing how far his friends went to get him back, Miss Finch declares that Big Bird can stay. Now home where he belongs, Big Bird returns to his nest, where he greets Mr. Snuffleupagus, who had been waiting for his return.

As they prepare to graduate from college, the Muppets perform a musical revue they call 'Manhattan Melodies.' The show is a major crowd-pleaser, and several people suggest that Kermit take the show to Broadway. Kermit is at first unsure, but the other Muppets insist on this as well, and they head off to New York City. The gang goes from place-to-place, but none of the big Broadway producers seem interested. As their money dries up, the group stops into a small restaurant, run by Pete and his daughter Jenny. It is here that the other Muppets secretly reveal to each other (minus Kermit) that maybe they are holding him up from being able to make 'Manhattan Melodies,' and lie to Kermit, explaining they have gotten job offers in other parts of the country. The group parts ways, and Kermit is left alone in Manhattan. Unsure what to do, he goes to the top of the Empire State Building, and looking down, regains his resolve, shouting out that he is going to succeed, and get his friends back and get 'Manhattan Melodies' made. Partnering with Jenny and working at Pete's restaurant, Kermit attempts to try several different technicques to give the play to certain people: barging into a producer's office pretending to be an old friend. recruiting several of Pete's rat cooks to spread a whispering campaign in a high-profile restaurant. However, each of these attempts leads to failure, but Jenny insists that Kermit shouldn't give up. While in Central Park, both are surprised to come across Miss Piggy, whom Kermit had assumed had left with everyone else. Though it soon becomes apparent that Piggy has been following Kermit, and thinks that he has developed a relationship with Jenny. Kermit ends up helping Piggy get a job at Pete's soon after. Looking through mail from their friends, Kermit is surprised to find a letter from the office of Bernard Crawford, a big Broadway producer. Kermit rushes off only to find that the letter was sent by Bernard's son, Ronnie. Bernard is willing to give his son the chance to produce a picture, and Ronnie loves 'Manhattan Melodies' and wants to produce it! Kermit eagerly calls up Piggy and Jenny and tells them the news, but then gets so excited that he walks into the middle of the street and gets hit by a car, developing amnesia. After being in the hospital, Kermit's memory still hasn't recovered, but the hospital sends him on his way. Wandering into an ad agency, a trio of ad executives (who happen to be frogs) take Kermit in when he helps them with a soap advertising tagline. Meanwhile, the rest of the Muppets have returned to New York, but the group is now faced with trying to find Kermit, as well as prepare for the opening of the show in 2 weeks! Even though they find Kermit at the diner, he does not remember them so they are forced to bring him to the theatre. At the theater where Manhattan Melodies is set to show, Piggy tries to one time to remember get Kermit to remember, but he just makes hating comments about love between a frog and a pig. She hits him with a punch and Kermit finally reunites with his friends.

The film takes place on Thra, a planet with three suns; the Great Sun, the Rose Sun and the Dying Sun. Many creatures and races inhabit the planet but the dominant race is the urSkeks who are the guardians of the Crystal of Truth. The Crystal harnesses the forces of nature, especially the light of the three suns, for the benefit of all on Thra. One thousand years before the beginning of the movie, the urSkeks cracked the Crystal of Truth, and split into two races during the Great Conjunction of the three suns - the hunchbacked, gentle beings known as Mystics (or urRu in the original drafts and novelization), and the vulture-like, cruel bipedal beings known as Skeksis. In that moment the Crystal became the Dark Crystal. The Skeksis drove the Mystics from the castle, where the shattered crystal resides, and instituted a reign of terror over their world. Their wrath was particularly directed toward the elf-like Gelflings due to a prophecy that promised the restoration of the crystal and the end of the Skeksis' power by a Gelfling. The prophecy, rediscovered in an ancient Gelfling city, read: When single shines the triple sun, What was sundered and undone Shall be whole, the two made one, By Gelfling hand, or else by none. Jen believes he is the last of the Gelflings. After his parents were killed by the crustacean-like Garthim commanded by the Skeksis, he is raised in a lush valley in which the Mystics reside. The Mystic Master who taught and raised him him is dying, and he calls Jen to his side to reveal that his destiny is to "heal" the crystal by replacing the crystal shard. He tells Jen that the crystal shard can be found at Aughra's observatory. The emperor of the Skeksis, skekSo, dies at the same time that the Master urSu does. In a duel over the succession called Haakskeekah (trial by stone), the Chamberlain skekSil is defeated by skekUng, the Garthim Master, and is banished and driven from the palace in rags. Jen reaches Aughra, a wise woman character of unknown species, and discovers the actual crystal shard by playing music on his flute, to which it resonates and stands out from the other crystals with which it lies. He must unify the shard with the crystal from which it sprang in time for the Great Conjunction, when his world's three suns will be aligned with one another. If the conjunction occurs before the Crystal is healed, the state of their world will become permanent, with the Skeksis ruling forever as immortals. Garthim arrive to capture or kill Jen, who flees as Aughra is taken prisoner and her observatory is destroyed. Meanwhile, the Mystics hear the call of the Crystal, and begin their trek back to the castle. By a river, Jen is frightened by a ball-shaped, dog-like pet known as Fizzgig and meets another Gelfling, Kira, whose existence he never suspected. They stay for a night amongst the bulbous Podlings who raised Kira and are then attacked by Garthim there. Kira, Jen, and Fizzgig escape the attack, but many Podlings are captured by the Garthim. In frustration and despair, feeling responsible for the Garthim raid, Jen discards the crystal shard. Kira reassures him that he had nothing to do with the attack, "It wasn't your fault... the Garthim have always come." In the morning, as they awaken, they discover one of the houses of the old Gelfling City, where Jen cites the prophecy of the Crystal and recovers the shard, although Kira faces apprehension about entering the ruins ("Bad things happened in here once" is her sentiment). Jen and Kira are confronted by the disgraced skekSil, who offers to help them, but they refuse. Riding on furry, long-legged Landstriders, the Gelflings quickly arrive at the castle of the crystal, just in time to see the Garthim that attacked Kira's village. Kira, followed by Jen, ride to attack the Garthim and try to free the captured Podlings while the Landstriders fight the Garthim to distract them from the rescue effort. The Gelflings fail to rescue the Podlings and find the Garthim, after subduing the Landstriders, closing in on them at the edge of the deep, rocky moat that encircles the castle. Sweeping Jen and Fizzgig into her arms, Kira jumps off the cliff... revealing that female Gelflings have wings. At the bottom of the gully, Jen and Kira end up at the Teeth of the Skreesh, an undefended sewer entrance to the lower parts of the castle. skekSil meets them again and attempts to convince them to offer peace to the Skeksis. As Jen and Kira attempt to escape, skekSil grabs Kira's arm in protest. Worried for Kira's safety, Jen strikes skekSil, using the crystal shard as a dagger, wounding skekSil's arm. Concurrently, a Mystic, urSol, suffers a spontaneous wound on his arm in the same location. During this time Fizzgig also attacked skekSil by biting him and renting chunks of cloth from his ragged robes. Enraged, skekSil forces Jen into a wall, inciting a cave-in. skekSil then takes Kira prisoner, believing Jen to be dead. For capturing Kira, skekSil is restored to his position as Chamberlain. The Skeksis require Gelflings to make their "everlasting essence", a potion that restores youth and strength. The emperor decides to regain his youth by draining Kira's life essence. It is revealed that the potency of the "everlasting essence" and the Crystal prophecy feared by the Skeksis fueled their genocide of the Gelflings. Only a few drops of the "everlasting essence" are drawn from Kira before she calls out to the animals imprisoned in the laboratory, who break free and attack the Skeksis overseer and scientist, skekTek. skekTek falls back into a volcanic pit, killing him. Concurrently, one of the mystics travelling to the castle, urTih, disintegrates into flames at the same time. Kira escapes, and the link between her and Jen gives him the strength to escape the cave-in. In the central interior chamber where the crystal is housed, Jen alights upon the Crystal but the shard falls from his hands. Kira throws the shard back to him, returning it to Jen. In so doing she leaves herself open to attack, and she is killed by the Skeksis Ritual Master, skekZok. At the conjunction of the three suns, Jen seals the shard, unifying the crystal. The Garthim shatter (who were originally created by the Skeksis, and so are not truly living beings) and the Mystics and Skeksis reunite into their original urSkek incarnations. The urSkek communicate directly to the consciousness via mystical sign language. One of them, UngIm, restores Kira to life, and they leave this plane of existence as the crystal has been healed and made whole. The crystal is dark no longer and has been returned to the Crystal of Truth and the world too has been similarly healed.