Labyrinth Breakdown

So, today is a commentary on Labyrinth. It was made in 1986 and stars Jennifer Connelly, David Bowie, and various Jim Henson puppets. My sister LOVED this movie when she was little and I've seen it a billion times. Seriously. She made me watch it ALL THE TIME. It's produced by George Lucas, which is cool as well.

Okay, so we start off with some CG owls and awesome 80's music. I believe this is Underground by David Bowie. The synths are amazing. The CG owls are also surprisingly good for it being 1986. Oh, and Frank Oz is in this! He played Yoda.

Seriously, how can you go wrong with Jim Henson? I mean, Muppets, Labyrinth, and Farscape? Awesome.

So Sarah, played by Jennifer Connelly starts off with a dramatic monologue. She was 16 in this movie, and she is so pretty. Turns out she's performing a play. By herself. Can't say I've ever done this. She freaks out because she's late for something and she starts running home.

I think it was a real coup getting David Bowie in this movie. The soundtrack is awesome (especially Underground), and the PANTS. That comes later.

So Sarah's stepmother yells at Sarah because she's late to babysit her little brother and she makes the dog go in the garage and Sarah has a shitfit. Fuck, I canNOT spell Sarah apparently. Sarah yells at her dad for no apparent reason. Sarah is practicing her play and yells at her dad some more. She's wearing the most amazing shirt ever. The sleeves are ginormous and she has some kind of animal print vest?

Sarah freaks out again because her parents took her teddy bear to give to her little brother, who is a baby. Sarah tells Toby (the baby) a story that goes like this: a young girl hated her brother and she was practically a slave and the king of the goblins had fallen in love with her and offered to take the baby away if the girl said the magic words. Cut to a bunch of cute/ugly goblins listening to Sarah and waiting for her to say the words. Back to the story. The girl knew the king would keep the baby forever so she suffered in silence until one day she got really mad. So Toby keeps crying and Sarah's all, "I'll say the words!" but the baby won't shut up. Then Sarah says a rhyme asking the goblin king to come, but those aren't the words. The goblins are disappointed. Then she says, "I wish the goblins would come and take you away." AND THEN TOBY STOPS CRYING. Those goblins work FAST, let me tell you. She gets worried and goes back in. I'm excited because David Bowie shows up soon. The lights won't go on (never a good sign) and she hears weird laughing. These goblins are adorable. They're ugly in a way that makes them cute. Then an owl flies in and turns into DUN DUN DUN....JARETH, THE GOBLIN KING!

See? Magnificent. You can't see "The Area" here but that will come. All things in their time. The more I watch this, the more I come to the conclusion that David Bowie was just great. He looks like a clown with his anime hair and his weird angular eyebrows, but he combines charm and magnetism with villain slime in such a perfect way. He's a great villain. Plus, there's the pants.

I wonder if Bowie watches this sometimes and is like, "What was I THINKING?"

So Sarah asks David Jareth to give the baby back but he won't.

Okay, here's something I'm confused about. According to Wikipedia, Jareth's powers are to manipulate time and space, and to make little crystal balls. I don't really know the purpose of that. What kind of power is that? "I can make snow globes WITH MY MIND." That's the stupidest thing ever.

David Bowie is awesome.

There's this creepy sexual subtext with Jareth (played by a 39 year old David Bowie) and the 15 year old Sarah (played by 16 year old Jennifer Connelly). I never got that when I was little, but I watched this a few days ago and I was like, "whoa."

Anyway, Jareth gives Sarah 13 hours to get through the titular Labyrinth to the castle to save her brother. Sarah starts off through the labyrinth and meets a gobliny type thing named Hoggle who is spraying fairies so they won't bite him.

HEY. Sarah accidentally calls Hoggle "Hogwart." I wonder if JK Rowling is a fan of this film.

Sarah has a shitfit because the labyrinth just goes on and on and then a worm starts talking to her. The worm directs her to a hidden passage. She starts going down a path and the worm tells her to go the other way, and then later muses that going the first way would have led her straight to the castle. Stupid worms.

Cut to Jareth, the goblins, and Toby. And MAGIC DANCE. Toby just looks utterly confused by all these strange creatures. He seriously looks extremely befuddled. I would be too. There are also chickens randomly here. I'm going to try to get a screencap of Bowie here without his cloak. SONG BREAK. He's awesome. For your pleasure, here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UoG-xQ9Lqc

"You remind me of the bulge. Pants magic pants!" That's my favourite song of the whole thing.

Damn, he's moving too much to get a good screencap. I tried, but a goblin moved right in front of him as soon as I screencapped it. Never mind, here we go.
Not sure why all the pictures turned out so small.
Not gonna lie...the goblin castle here looks like a good time. It seems like all they do is watch live performances by Bowie, drink, dance, and occasionally play with babies. Good times.

So anyway, now Sarah is mad because the labyrinth keeps changing and she's talking to four rat/dog thingies. It's the classic thought problem where there are two creatures. She can ask one question. One creature always tells the truth, and one creature always lies. The trick is to ask one what the other one would say and then do the opposite. So she goes through a door and then falls among all these disembodied hands. The Helping Hands, ha ha ha. I get it.

Cut to the Goblin Castle. Jareth is mad because Sarah should have given up by now. Funny part: He says that this will lead her back to the beginning (I think) and that she'll give up when she realizes she has to start all over again. Silence. Then he's like, "Well, LAUGH!"

So she's in this dark cavern type thing and Hoggle's randomly there to help her, although his loyalty is in question. So they start going down this path and these faces made of rock are like, "Go back! You're on the wrong path!" But they all lie, especially if you're on the right track. Uh oh, one of Jareth's magical crystal balls are here and leads to a beggar that turns into Jareth.
Look at that. LOOK AT THAT:

Jareth gets mad at Hoggle because he's helping Sarah and threatens to throw him into the Bog of Eternal Stench. More on that later. Also, another great screencap:

Come ON. I can't IMAGINE that they didn't put that shot in there on purpose. They HAD to have known it was a blatant crotch shot. My theory is that it's fanservice for the parents. You had to have SOMETHING for the parents if their kids were anything like my sister, who made the whole family watch this movie at EVERY OPPORTUNITY.

Jareth asks Sarah how she's doing with the labyrinth, she says it's a piece of cake, and he moves the clock forward a few hours and then this weird spiky thing starts coming at them, and every time I see this it reminds me of Raiders of the Lost Ark when that big boulder is coming after Indy. I love run on sentences. So anyway, they escape from the spiky thing and continue on.

So they talk about the Bog of Eternal Stench. When we were little and my sister and I were playing Barbies she invented this thing called the Pit of Stench. It was like the WORST punishment for Barbies and if they even got a little of the bog water on them they would stink forever. I now realize that came from Labyrinth.

Sarah talks to this old guy with a chicken on his head and asks if he knows the way through the Labyrinth. He gives some Yoda-esque advice and then falls asleep.

I don't know why Sarah doesn't just bull her way through this hedge maze she is currently in. I would just push my way through the bushes to the castle. A straight line would be the fastest. So anyway. Sarah hears scary growls and Hoggle runs away. It turns out to be a bunch of little pig thingies terrorizing another cute/ugly creature. Sarah throws rocks at them and they go away. The big furry thing's name is Ludo and she sets him free. He is so adorable.

Then Sarah finds two doors with big doorknockers. One of them starts snarking at her. She knocks and goes through the door to a jungle. Back to Goblin Castle. Okay, Jareth mentions that Toby has his eyes. Does this mean that Toby is his son? It would make sense, since he is so fixated on Toby for some reason, and in the manga sequel, Jareth wants Toby to be his heir. There are so many layers to this movie.

Jareth confronts Hoggle again and warns him again not to help him. Jareth's hair really is insane. I wonder whose idea that hairstyle was. Jareth tells Hoggle to give Sarah a peach and then tells Hoggle that if he Sarah kisses him (Hoggle) he will go immediately to the Bog of Eternal Stench. Another crotch shot. I think they made Hoggle at thigh level just so they could get those shots in. Another song break! This is another Bowie composition called Chilly Down, but it is sung by these weird thingies called Fierys. It's strangely reggae tinged. This scene is also notorious for the bad blue screen effects, even for its time. You can't really tell from the picture, but it's bad.

This song is a total big lipped alligator moment. It makes no sense, has no bearing on the plot, and is never mentioned again. I think it was just another way to shoehorn in a Bowie song.

Hoggle randomly shows up AGAIN to save her. Sarah kisses him and they go immediately to the Bog of Eternal Stench but stop themselves before they fall in. Fun fact: Bogs make farting noises, apparently. They start walking on this narrow walkway and almost fall in multiple times. They find Ludo, who was lost. The try to get across a bridge but a fox(?), Sir Didymus, stops them from crossing. Ludo and Didymus start fighting. Didymus says that he has never met his match before and declares Ludo his brother, but he still won't let them cross. Sarah finally gets his permission and they all set off across the bridge, which collapses underneath Sarah. Ludo calls some rocks (that is his special power, apparently) and they form stepping stones.

Splitting hairs here but...Sarah walks across the stones which are still wet from the bog. Wouldn't she have some on her shoes and then she would stink forever?

And another thing I'm confused about. Didymus calls his "steed", which is actually a dog. I don't know why Sarah isn't like, "OMG, it's my dog!" Because it looks exactly like her dog from the beginning. I thought it actually WAS her dog until she had no reaction at all.

Jareth is like God. Hoggle almost throws the peach in the bog and his voice comes down from the Heavens and is like, "I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Maybe it's because David Bowie is God. IT'S ALL MAKING SENSE NOW.

This is a point brought up in the Labyrinth WMG on tvtropes.org. Hoggle gives her the peach and she's not suspicious at all. She has books of fairy tales and myths in her room. Obviously she's genre savvy in that department. And yet she is not suspicious at all of being offered fruit in a faerie realm from someone whose loyalty is in question.

SONG BREAK. This one is When The World Falls Down. I think. Sarah falls asleep, Didymus and Ludo randomly leave, and Jareth sends crystal balls floating towards her. Seriously, that's a shitty power. Didymus and Ludo finally realize Sarah is not with them.

This is when subtext becomes text. Sarah is now at a goblin masked ball, wearing the most flouncy dress I have ever seen in my life. She seems to be searching for someone. Bowie watches her creepily as the love theme plays. Seriously, this movie is so creepy. I never realized how creepy and sexual it was until I just watched this like three days ago. "I'll place the moooooooooooon within your heart!" Jareth smiles SO CREEPILY. I can't look. And yet he's like one of those villains that you know is a horrible person and you still find yourself attracted to them. I had the same problem with Krycek from The X-Files. I don't know if this is just because he's played by David Bowie, or what. Jareth and Sarah start dancing and I can't help but think about the rumour I read on tvtropes.org that David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly shared a brief relationship on the set. Ew.

I wish David Bowie would sing to me.

Sarah runs away and smashes a window and falls back to the ground. A junkyard, to be exact. She finds a scary little junk lady and it turns out that Sarah forgot what she was doing. The junk lady gives her Lancelot (her teddy bear) and leads her to a perfect replica of her room from home. She tries to go outside but the junk lady is all, "Stay in here. You don't want to go out there" and then starts handing her all these toys. I love this junk lady. She's hilarious. She sounds like an old Ukrainian lady. Then Sarah finds her book that she was reading from at the beginning and she remembers everything. They then go through the gates of the goblin city. The dog switches back and forth from animal to puppet. Then the coolest part of this movie (other than Bowie) appears: A GINORMOUS FREAKING ROBOT. Seriously. It's sweet, if extremely slow moving. Hoggle jumps on top and takes over the controls. Then the robot blows up. It's an awesome sequence, all in all.

Jareth hears that Sarah is in the city and stands up from his throne, showing off his long...cloak. A bunch of goblin soldiers come out and surround them. There's a battle and they all hide in a house. Ludo calls the rocks, which take out all the soldiers. Seriously, calling ROCKS? Granted, it's kind of a badass move in this particular battle, but what kind of stupid power is that?

They finally make it to the goblin castle but no one's there. Sarah's like, "I have to face him alone." It makes me think of Firefly:
Zoe: This is something the captain has to do for himself!
Mal: No! No it's not!
Zoe: Oh. [The three of them start shooting].

Now it's the MC Escher staircase scene and it's another Bowie song. Not sure which one this is. Within You, maybe? Anyway, Sarah sees Toby but she can't get to him. Bowie has an amazing falsetto. This is another creepy sexual scene. Lyrics:
How you turned my world, you precious thing
You starve and near exhaust me
Everything Ive done, Ive done for you
I move the stars for no one

Youve run so long
Youve run so far

Your eyes can be so cruel
Just as I can be so cruel
Though I do believe in you

Yes I do

Live without the sunlight
Love without your heartbeat
I, I cant live within you
I cant live within you

And he has such a look of LONGING in his eyes.
I'm not sure sure what "I can't live within you" actually means, but it sounds not good.

You can't really get it from the pictures, but he has this strange magnetism.

So Sarah jumps off the edge of one of the stairs and finally gets reunited with Toby. Bowie is magnificent.

See? Magnificent. Not sure what's up with the random costume change, but it's AWESOME. So Sarah recites her lines from the play she was rehearsing in the beginning. Jareth is like, "Let me rule you!" It gets weirder. He's like, "Love me, fear me, do what I say, and I will be your slave!" I don't know how I didn't get the sexual subtext the first billion times I saw this. I was young though, that's probably why.

Anyhoodle, Sarah says the line she always forgets, which is, "You have no power over me" and that defeats him, and then she's home and Toby's in his crib. Sarah gives Lancelot to Toby, a symbolic gesture I imagine. Now all her friends from the labyrinth are in her room. It's a DANCE PARTY! No seriously. it's a dance party. Complete with party hats and silly string. Only in the 80's, ladies and gentlemen.