I watched the first 5 episodes so far. It's really awesome! The puppetry is much improved since the original movie. I watched the movie last week before I watched the show. In the movie the puppets move pretty slow and jerky, but in the show they can move faster and much smoother and more realistic. It's cool that the puppet master who did the original movie also is doing the show along with his son. In the last 35 years I'm sure the tech and computer control systems must have improved alot. I barely notice that they are puppets in the show, it's very well done. Plus, they use CGI for backgrounds and magic special effects, similar to effects from Lord of the Rings. Wild CGI camera angels, effects, and building vast backgrounds wasn't possible in 1982, and it helps build the world alot more, even though the movie was very well done with the tech they had at the time.
The story is much broader this time, with many more factions. It starts slow the first 3 episodes and then starts getting more intense after ep 4. They did a better job of defining the different Skesis to make them more unique looking. In the movie they all looked almost the same except for the Chamberlain. It's kind of funny how they just refer to themselves with titles, The scientist, the general, the emperor. None of them have personal names that they use anyway, or they were long forgotten ages ago. The Chamberlain is devious and the most interesting character. The other Gelfling characters are well done.
They borrow some fantasy tropes from Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, but it's kind of hard not to do that when doing a dark fantasy story.
I liked the orchestral music in the movie alot better, it was very dark, epic, and mysterious, it fit with the dark story. Now the music is kind of generic fantasy movie music, it feels dumbed down to me. Although at some parts the Gelflings sing in their language and it was very touching.
Overall, I'm really enjoying it so far!!! It's a very epic dark fantasy story, if your a Lord of the Rings fan, I think anyone would enjoy it alot.