Labyrinth (1986 film)

Labyrinth
File:Labyrinth movie.jpg
Directed by	Jim Henson
Written by	Dennis Lee Jim Henson Terry Jones Elaine May
Produced by	Eric Rattray George Lucas
Starring	David Bowie Jennifer Connelly Toby Froud
Music by	David Bowie Trevor Jones
Distributed by	Columbia TriStar
Release date	June 27 1986 (USA)
Running time	102 min.
Language	English
Budget	$25 Million

Labyrinth is a 1986 fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed through the art of Brian Froud. Henson collaborated on the screenwriting with children's author Dennis Lee and Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones. The leads are David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King, and a teenage Jennifer Connelly as Sarah Williams. The plot revolves around Sarah's quest to rescue her little brother from the Goblin King while trapped in a world that is an enormous fantasy maze. Most of the other significant roles are played by puppets or by a combination of puppetry and human performance. It was shot on location in New York and at Elstree Studios in the UK. It was the last feature film directed by Henson before his death in 1990.

Synopsis

Sarah Williams is a dreamer, a young girl obsessed with fantasy and playing dress-up. The movie opens with a scene of Sarah rehearsing lines from her book Labyrinth in the park. Sarah lets her imagination take her into her own world and loses track of time, forgetting that she must babysit her baby half-brother, Toby, that night. In a flurry, she runs home only to find her angry stepmother waiting at the front door for her. Sarah has an argument with her, the stepmother leaves with Sarah's father for their date, and Sarah is left to babysit Toby. Already in a state of anger, Sarah realizes her treasured stuffed bear, Lancelot, is missing from her room. Storming into Toby's room, she finds Lancelot and yells at Toby. He begins to cry, and Sarah tries to quiet his screaming by rehearsing more lines from Labyrinth. The part of the story she cites tells of a young woman granted special powers by the king of the goblins. It tells of how the girl could no longer stand her life and wishes for goblins to take away her screaming baby brother. As she ends the story and turns out the light, she says, "I wish the goblins would come and take you away...right now." Toby's crying suddenly stops. Worried, Sarah enters his room to find Toby has vanished.

A barn owl flutters through the opened window and transforms into the goblin king Jareth (David Bowie) and tells her he has taken the baby as she had beseeched. Appalled at the realization of what she had done, she begs for the return of her brother. He gives her 13 hours in which to solve the Labyrinth and find Toby; or he will keep him forever.

The Labyrinth is not a simple maze. The pathways and openings in the walls of the maze change from time to time. It is its own world, riddled with logic-puzzles and tests. She first meets Hoggle, a small dwarf, spraying fairies with pesticide outside the entrance. She bribes him with plastic jewelry to lead her through the maze. Though he will eventually side with Sarah, it is later discovered that he is a half-hearted spy working for Jareth. Her other companions along the way are Sir Didymus, a chivalrous fox-knight who rides a sheepdog called Ambrosius; lives at The Bog of Eternal Stench and guards a bridge to uphold a sacred oath; and Ludo, a giant, gentle beast she rescues from some of Jareth's goblins. After a variety of adventures, including an encounter with detachable-limbed revelers known as "The Fire Gang", who try to remove Sarah's head; a detour through the Bog of Eternal Stench; a stop at the Four Guards, where she must solve a Raymond Smullyan inspired Knights and Knaves logic puzzle to avoid certain death; a junkyard recreation of her own bedroom; and a hallucinogenic-peach induced masquerade ball, Sarah makes her way into the castle beyond the goblin city.

The film climaxes in Jareth's multi-dimensional M. C. Escher-inspired castle, wherein he makes a final appeal for her to abandon her quest and stay with him as his queen. She rejects him at the last moment, echoing the lines she originally could not remember when trying to rehearse the lines of Labyrinth: "You have no power over me". The room crumbles away and Sarah finds herself in the front hall of her home with the clock striking midnight and the barn owl (Jareth) flying away.

In her room, she collects some of her toys, then returns to Toby's room to give him Lancelot. Whilst clearing her dresser off, confused regarding whether this was the turning point in her life between growing up and remaining a child, Hoggle appears along with Ludo and Sir Didymus, as images in the mirror. They seem to be bidding her good-bye as she leaves behind the fantasies of childhood, but remind her that they will still be available "should you need us." Sarah, however, insists that even as she grows up, she will still need them, and the film closes as the Labyrinth creatures celebrate Sarah's refusal to give up her imagination. Outside, the Jareth owl watches the party for a while, then flies away into the night.

Cast

• David Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin king: He is the king of the Labyrinth, a vast kingdom within a realm known as The Underground, though not literally under the ground. His powers include the ability to form crystal orbs in his hands which can create illusions of all types or to view things from a distance. He can transform into a barn owl at will. He appears human but he has quite a few magical abilities and he does not age between the film Labyrinth and the Return to Labyrinth manga. David Bowie's character is seen to contact juggle throughout the film. These manipulations were actually performed by renowned juggler Michael Moschen, who stood behind Bowie during filming.

• Jennifer Connelly as Sarah Williams: The character of Sarah is the protagonist of Labyrinth. She is fifteen years old and loves fantasy stories. Her journey through the Labyrinth becomes one of spiritual, moral and psychological evolution for her. In the music video for "As the World Falls Down," a slightly older Sarah pines for her adventures within the Labyrinth as Jareth pines for her. The two never seem quite willing to go to each other.

• Toby Froud as Toby Williams: Toby is the baby Jareth kidnapped when Sarah wished for her baby brother to be wished away. Through the course of his time in Jareth's care it appeared that Jareth actually became attached to Toby and made comments to the extent of 'He's a lively little chap, I think I'll call him Jareth. He's got my eyes.' For a time it appeared that Jareth had wanted to turn Toby into a Goblin, as evidenced by his earlier line: 'Before your baby brother becomes one of us forever.' Toby is the half-brother of Sarah Williams (they share the same father). His mother is Irene Williams while Sarah's mother was Linda Williams (Sarah's father's first wife). Conceptual artist Brian Froud's infant son Toby (also named Toby) played Sarah's brother in the movie.

• Linda Williams: Only seen in the photographs in Sarah's bedroom and mentioned in the novelization, Linda Williams is Sarah's biological mother. She showed signs of being bipolar and was a passionate actress. She had an affair with a co-star, Jeremy (who may or may not have been Jareth in disguise) and left Sarah and her father. Sarah's father re-married a woman named Irene and together they had Sarah's half-brother, Toby.

• Shelley Thompson as Irene Williams: Irene was never mentioned by name in the film Labyrinth (although many fans dubbed her 'Karen') however in 2006 she was officially named Irene by the Henson Company in the 'Return to Labyrinth' manga. Irene is very prudish and believes things should be normal, proper and acceptable; though not really a terrible person, Sarah resents her, as does Toby in the manga.

• Christopher Malcolm as Robert Williams: A somewhat wooden character, he only appeared briefly in the film as Toby and Sarah's father. He's only mentioned by name in the novelization.

• Shari Weiser and Brian Henson (voice) as Hoggle: Hoggle is a cowardly dwarf-goblin that works for Jareth but becomes loyal to the sweet-natured Sarah. Hoggle gets irritated when Jareth gets his name wrong, repeatedly, which appears to deliberately be done on purpose to annoy him. Jareth threatened Hoggle that if Sarah ever kissed him, he would become "The Prince of the Land of Stench"; there is some implication that Hoggle may have been developing romantic feelings for Sarah, and Jareth's peculiar threat could be interpreted as evidence of jealousy. Against his own wishes, Hoggle gives Sarah a peach as a gift from Jareth, who threatens to dump him in the Bog of Eternal Stench if he does not do so. But when Sarah loses her way as a result of being induced into a deep sleep brought on the peach, which subsequently causes Sarah to temporarily lose her memory, he is unable to cope with his feeling of guilt and remorse, and becomes estranged from Sarah, who publicly brands him as a coward. However, at the entrance to the Goblin city, when Sarah, Ludo and sir Didymus are under attack from the guardian - a goblin in a towering suit of armor brandishing a large ax - Hoggle comes to the rescue and risks his life when he attacks the guardian. Hoggle is commended for his bravery in putting his life on the line by Sir Didymus and Ludo, and Sarah forgives him for his earlier mistake.

• Ron Mueck (voice) as Ludo: Ludo is a yeti who was being tormented by goblins until Sarah rescued him. Despite his great size and strength, Ludo tends to be reluctant to enter into a confrontation with anything, and instead will issue a deep, lowing howl which will summon rocks of many sizes and number to his aid, a talent which proves useful several times throughout the film. He speaks with a very limited vocabulary, often only using nouns to make his point (for example, "Sarah friend.").

• David Shaughnessy (voice) as Sir Didymus: Sir Didymus is a small dog-fox goblin who guards The Bog of Eternal Stench. Shortly after he meets Sarah, he joins her in her quest to rescue Toby. He has a loyal 'steed' named Ambrosious (a sheep dog identical to Sarah's own dog, Merlin), who runs from trouble. In contrast, Sir Didymus is quite fearless and frequently taunts his enemies. Despite all this, he proves to be very quick and can be a decent threat with his miniature lance (an approximate match for Ludo in solo combat).

• Percy Edwards (voice) as Ambrosius. Sir Didymus' loyal steed. Unlike his courageous master, Ambrosius is a pacifist and generally stays away from trouble if he can help it, but always sticks with his master.

• Timothy Bateson (voice) as William the Worm: The worm is small, blue, and sentient, a goblin who wears a red scarf and lives in the brick wall of the first passage of the Labyrinth. He encounters Sarah during her earliest time within the maze. When Sarah asks him 'How do I get through this Labyrinth.' He mistakenly thinks she means 'How do I get out of this Labyrinth?' unaware that she wants to get to the castle. He sent her one way and told her never to go the other way. Once she was gone, he said 'If she had kept on going down that way she would have gone straight to that castle." Many mistakenly think he was deliberately misleading her. The novel version was a bit clearer, his line being "If she'd gone the other way, she'd have walked straight into that dreadful castle."

• Frank Oz and Sir Michael Hordern (voice) as The Wiseman: This goblin encounters Sarah halfway through the Labyrinth, giving her puzzling advice and arguing with the bird-like figure that lives upon his head. His scene possesses no real significance, but to bring comic relief to the movie and transition into a more significant piece of the story.

• Dave Goelz (voice) as The Wiseman's Bird Hat. Spends most of his time arguing with the Wiseman; like the Wiseman has no real significance, but again, brings some comic relief to the story.

• Karen Prell and Denise Bryer (voice) as The Junk Lady. The Junk Lady encounters Sarah after she wakes up from the dream that the peach given to her by Hoggle as a gift from Jareth induces on her. On the surface, it would appear that the Junk Lady is trying to distract her from her quest to find Toby, as Sarah has lost her memory after eating the peach. In fact, she represents a kind-hearted but over-protective maternal figure trying to cling on to memories of Sarah's childhood (possibly alluding to Sarah's past relationship with her "natural" mother before she walked out on Sarah and her father). Hence, the Junk Lady leads Sarah into a "junkyard" version of her own bedroom, giving her an array of toys that her language suggests Sarah once owned and loved but her parents forced her to get rid of as she got older. She talks to Sarah in the same tone as a concerned mother would speak to a girl aged about six. After reading a passage from the "Labyrinth" book, Sarah realises that the Junk Lady is not real, but an illusion created by Jareth. She then remembers that she has to save Toby, and she discards the toys, at which point the room and the Junk Lady both disappear, and Sarah is immediately reunited with Ludo, Sir Didymus and Ambrosius.

• Warwick Davis as Goblin Corps

• Steve Whitmire, Kevin Clash, Anthony Asbury, & Dave Goelz (voices) as The Four Guards.

• Robert Beatty and Dave Goelz (voices) as Right and Left Door Knockers (respectively): The door knockers are a dynamic duo literally living upon a set of doors. One has a knocker ring in his ears, the other in his mouth. One can hardly speak and the other can hardly hear, making them a form of irony. Both are obvious cameo appearances of the Muppet Show characters Statler & Waldorf, another Jim Henson creation.

• Kevin Clash, Charles Augins, Danny John-Jules, Richard Bodkin (voices) as Firey 1-5: The Fierys (AKA The Fire Gang) are a group of wild fox fire goblins that lurk within the Labyrinth's forest. They have detachable body parts, and enjoy playing athletic activities. However, they don't grasp the concept that Sarah doesn't come into pieces as they do, and attempt to take her apart. She escapes with the help of Hoggle, whom she kisses in thanks, resulting in their express trip to the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Other characters

• Agnes is actually a species of goblin. Sarah runs into a particular Agnes on her journey. Agneses are junk lady goblins who are extremely sentimental and carry the weight of all their junk on their backs. They're very selfish and possessive and would like to make Sarah like themselves. In early versions of the script, the Agnes Sarah meets was actually Jareth in a robotic disguise.

• Humongous is a large robot (resembling a goblin) that guards the entrance to Jareth's castle. It seems to require a pilot.

• The Lichen: A yellowish fungus that grows in the Labyrinth walls. It has eyeballs and shutters and mutters amongst itself.

• False Alarms are rock formation faces that cover the walls of the underground passages of Jareth's Labyrinth. They falsely tell Sarah that she is heading in the wrong direction when she is not.

• Alph and Ralph are two goblin guards in front of two doors. One tells the truth and the other one always lies. One door leads to certain death and the other leads to the castle. The trick is not to find out which one is telling the truth, but rather how to get the same answer from either of them. This mystery is solved by asking 'Would he (meaning the opposite guard) tell me this door leads to the castle?' Either you'll be told by the truthful guard what the liar would say (and therefore get told a lie) or you are talking to the liar and would get a lie by default. So if you ask one guard what the other guard would say you automatically get the opposite of the truth. Sarah got this riddle right but many mistakenly thought she got it wrong. It's explained in the children's book version of the Labyrinth. Sarah went through the correct door, but mistakenly said 'It's a piece of cake' right after that. To say that within the Labyrinth causes automatic misfortune. It happens three times in the film. She fell down into a shaft of helping hands, and from there it was her choice to go up or down. If she went up she would have been fine, but she chose down and fell into an 'oubliette', or "A place where you are forgotten."

• Helping Hands are gnarled hand shaped goblins that protrude through the walls of the shaft that leads to one of the Labyrinth's many oubliettes. They talk to you by making their hands into face formations and they act as a group, though they sometimes argue amongst themselves.

• The biting fairies are pixies that exist outside the Labyrinth. They bite you if you touch them, much like the common fly or mosquito. When we first see them Hoggle is exterminating them like they are bugs. They are not human-sized fairies like Jareth.

• The captain of the guard is a goblin with a long white mustache who serves Jareth.

• Other Goblins: Every single Goblin within Jareth's Labyrinth has his own name and back story which are compiled in the book Goblins of Labyrinth as well as the now out of print The Goblin Companion: A field guide to goblins. Some of these goblins are Quiver, Luerk, Bakobobs Kamabissca, Bubi, Squeek, Pug, Pitch, Fodder, Pongo, Skoat, Boing, Sneek, Skuell, Candlewic, Zitzi, Gibbergiest, Amam Pherruginius, Trysop, Frolo, Bec, Caull, Faustius, Hortenz, Target goblins (Multiple goblins), Nipper Sticks (Multiple goblins), Twark (A goblin bird), Eled the worm tamer, Spue, Hywr, Lowr, Roem Babba, gurdy, Quilk, Maelicious, Groeg, Dogsthorpe, Bregg the poet, Kluttons (multiple goblins), and Bonius Eventius.

Songs

The following songs were composed by David Bowie and performed by his character, Jareth in the film except for Chilly Down, which is performed by the Fieries (a.k.a. The Fire Gang).

• "Underground" (Opening)
• "Magic Dance" (Sometimes known as "Dance Magic")
• "Chilly Down"
• "As The World Falls Down"
• "Within You"
• "Underground"

David Bowie admits in the documentary Inside The Labyrinth that he had to do baby noises on 'Magic Dance' because the baby they had brought in to the studio wouldn't gurgle.

Box-office

The film turned out to be a failure at the box office, grossing only $12 million from ticket sales (The budget for the film had been $25 million).

A 35mm reissue of the Labyrinth is being shown at various theaters in the Landmark Theaters chain, beginning with a run from July 27, 2007 to August 2, 2007 in San Francisco, California.

Cult classic

Labyrinth grew popularity over the years as a cult classic and is now considered fashionable among teenagers, Generation X-ers, and David Bowie fans. Labyrinth has gained much popularity over the years that there was even a recent action figure of Jareth that came to stores in May of 2007.

Labyrinth in other media

File:Labmanga1.jpg

The cover to Return to Labyrinth vol. 1

The film was novelized by A.C.H. Smith.

Marvel comics produced a three issue comic book adaptation

The soundtrack album Labyrinth includes much of Trevor Jones's strictly instrumental music including Into the Labyrinth, Sarah, Hallucination, The Goblin Battle, Thirteen O'Clock and Home at Last, and David Bowie's five songs, Magic Dance (also credited as Dance Magic), Chilly Down, As the World Falls Down, Within You, and the single released for the film, Underground. A single for Underground was released in 1986 and included an instrumental version as well as an extended dance mix of the song.

A video game based on the movie was released alongside the movie in 1986 for the Commodore 64 and Apple II. It was also released in Japan for the Nintendo Famicom.

Main article: Return to Labyrinth

Tokyopop in partnership with The Jim Henson Company published a manga-style three volume comic called Return to Labyrinth. The first volume was released August 8, 2006. It was written by Jake T. Forbes and illustrated by Chris Lie with cover art by Kouyu Shurei. It is a sequel to the film and is about Toby, the baby brother in the movie, when he has grown to be 15 years old. In October 2007 Tokyopop released the second volume, Return to Labyrinth 2. In an afterword, editor Tim Beedle announced that the series, originally planned as a trilogy, was being extended to include a fourth volume.

Sources and inspirations

• The filmmakers acknowledged several influences, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the works of Maurice Sendak (the plot mirrors that of his story 'Outside Over There') and M. C. Escher.
• Many of the settings and creatures in the film were based on designs by Brian Froud, who had previously collaborated with Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal. Froud and screenwriter Terry Jones later collaborated on the book The Goblins of Labyrinth which depicted some of the incidental creatures from the film.
• Some of the puzzles and riddles are inspired by the logician Raymond Smullyan.
• Some of the films visuals including set pieces were inspired by MC Escher artworks.

Credits

• Director: Jim Henson
• Screenplay: Terry Jones, from a story by Jim Henson and Dennis Lee
• Original Music: Trevor Jones
• Original Music (songs): David Bowie
• Choreography: Cheryl McFadden
• Conceptual Artist: Brian Froud

• • While Monty Python star Terry Jones is credited with the script, he claims that little of the movie following the part in which Sarah eats the enchanted peach is his own work.
  • Cheryl McFadden, the choreographer, is better known as Gates McFadden -- star of the hit Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series and movies as Beverly Crusher.

The film received a PG rating in the US and a U in the UK (equivalent to a US G). It runs for 101 minutes.

External links

• Labyrinth at IMDb
• N.Y. Times review by Nina Darntun, June 26, 1986. (requires login)
• Roger Ebert review, June 27, 1986.
• Muppet Wiki: Labyrinth