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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be

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Speaker 3: talking about a childhood classic, I think for many people

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Speaker 3: roughly our age or between our ages, the nineteen eighty

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Speaker 3: six musical fantasy film Labyrinth, starring Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie,

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Speaker 3: directed by Jim Henson. I was thinking, this is actually

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Speaker 3: our second David Bowie film, since we did previously cover

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Speaker 3: Nicholas Rogues. The Man Who Fell to Earth, a very interesting,

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Speaker 3: very good, but mood withering film about an alien who

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Speaker 3: comes to our planet on a mission to save his

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Speaker 3: own from catastrophic drought, but gets derailed by our culture's

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Speaker 3: infinite and infinitely absorbing distractions like television, alcohol, and table tennis.

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Speaker 3: You remember all the ping pong and The Man Who

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Speaker 3: Fell to Earth.

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Speaker 2: I had kind of forgotten about the ping pong until

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Speaker 2: you mentioned it, but that's a solid point.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So, while it also stars David Bowie, Labyrinth I

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Speaker 3: think is about as different a movie from the Man

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Speaker 3: Who Fell to Earth as one could possibly imagine. Bowie's

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Speaker 3: film career did have a lot of range. But thinking

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Speaker 3: about this actually raised a kind of humorous question for me.

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Speaker 3: Are there any similarities between the two movies? And the

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Speaker 3: more I thought about it, I thought, actually, there kind

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Speaker 3: of are, especially in the overall plot structure and the

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Speaker 3: journey of the hero. Both are stories in which the

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Speaker 3: hero or heroine is transported to an alien world on

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Speaker 3: an originally selfless quest to save their family or a

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Speaker 3: family member from a terrible fate, but faces obstacles along

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Speaker 3: the way, primarily in the form of temptations to go

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Speaker 3: off the path into narcissistic, self indulgent pursuits. So in

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Speaker 3: the case of Labyrinth, the heroine is played by a

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Speaker 3: young Jennifer Connolly, whose quest is to rescue her baby

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Speaker 3: brother from a goblin related predicament of her own making.

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Speaker 3: And Connolly's character is I like the character because she

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Speaker 3: is smart and brave, but begins the story as a

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Speaker 3: very believable teenager, so self pitying and self absorbed, infuriated

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Speaker 3: by the inconvenience of having to look after her screeching

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Speaker 3: baby brother for an evening and wanting simultaneously to be

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Speaker 3: free of her family and to achieve adult independence, but

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Speaker 3: also at the same time to regress into childhood and

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Speaker 3: avoid all responsibilities, like you know, hiding in her bedroom

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Speaker 3: with her dolls and costumes. And thus her challenges in

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Speaker 3: the movie reflect these very common and relatable teenage character issues,

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Speaker 3: like she's tempted along the way to give into defeatism

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Speaker 3: and selfishness in the forms of both self pity and

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Speaker 3: self indulgence. In the end, she emerges much more successfully

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Speaker 3: than Bowie's character and the Man Who Fell to Earth, though,

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Speaker 3: as we were discussing off Mike before recording, the exact

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Speaker 3: mechanics of her victory over the goblin King Jarith are

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Speaker 3: somewhat difficult to schematize.

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Speaker 2: That's right. This is a movie that I've seen so

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Speaker 2: many times over the years as a child, as an adult,

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Speaker 2: you know, as a parent, and so forth, And no

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Speaker 2: matter what phase of my life I am in, I

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Speaker 2: never completely get the details on how she defeats Jarreth,

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Speaker 2: but I never doubt the victory, like it's the emotional

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Speaker 2: accuracy of it feels one hundred percent there. This is

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Speaker 2: a film that will come back to this, I think

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Speaker 2: over and over again, but I think it speaks more

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Speaker 2: on an emotional level than it does on a logical level,

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Speaker 2: and I can't help but assume that that is one

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Speaker 2: of the factors playing into the disconnect between the way

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Speaker 2: the adult world reacted to this film when it came

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Speaker 2: out in eighty six and the way scores and scores

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Speaker 2: of children reacted to it over the years as they

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Speaker 2: grew up with the film.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we'll have a lot to say about

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Speaker 3: this as we go on, But oh, we haven't yet

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Speaker 3: gotten to one of the main things you would need

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Speaker 3: to know to understand Labyrinth if you've never seen it

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Speaker 3: and have no idea of what's going on here, and

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Speaker 3: it's a movie full of muppets. This is a Jim

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Speaker 3: Hinson production, so the fantasy elements and characters are achieved

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Speaker 3: through the use of some of the best puppetry ever

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Speaker 3: committed to film. Labyrinth came out a few years after

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Speaker 3: Hinson's previous fantasy movie, The Dark Crystal from nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 3: which I would say personally is probably the high watermark

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Speaker 3: for puppetry driven movies, Like I don't know what could

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Speaker 3: really be said to surpass it, And it's interesting to

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Speaker 3: compare the two films. We might also discuss that more

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Speaker 3: as we go on. But coming back to what you

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Speaker 3: were saying, Rob, about the way children reacted to Labyrinth

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Speaker 3: versus the way a lot of adults did. I also, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I get the impression that for a lot of people

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Speaker 3: who were kids in the eighties, Labyrinth was just part

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Speaker 3: of the common texture of childhood, as uncritically accepted and

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Speaker 3: culturally canonical as Star Wars or Et or the mainline

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Speaker 3: muppets like Kermit and Miss Piggy.

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Speaker 2: Was that your experience, Rob, Yeah, I mean, I don't

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Speaker 2: remember how exactly Labyrinth was initially introduced into our lives.

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Speaker 2: I think maybe we rented it from the video store

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Speaker 2: on VHS, but we liked it so much that we

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Speaker 2: purchased a VHS copy of Labyrinth. We watched it so

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Speaker 2: many times that we broke the VHS tape and we

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Speaker 2: actually had to go take it to be repaired. I

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Speaker 2: don't even know I repaired. Yeah, we had it repaired.

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Speaker 2: I don't know who did that kind of thing. What

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Speaker 2: the price point was, I assumed cheaper than buying a

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Speaker 2: new VHS tape. So it was repaired and returned to us.

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Speaker 2: But after that, the audio and the tape was warped

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Speaker 2: from there on out. So part of me still sort

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Speaker 2: of pines for a certain like electronic warping sound to

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Speaker 2: be present in the film even when it's not.

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Speaker 3: What does the fire Gang song sound like? When it's

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Speaker 3: even more.

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Speaker 2: Discombobulated, it sounds weirder and more threatening? Okay, I know,

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Speaker 2: as if that were possible. How about you, do you

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Speaker 2: remember how Labyrinth came into your life? Show?

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Speaker 3: Well? Actually, I'm this is weird because I feel like

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Speaker 3: I should know for sure one way or another about this,

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Speaker 3: but I can only say what I think is the case.

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Speaker 3: I think I actually never saw this movie in full

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Speaker 3: when I was a kid, and yet I had full

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Speaker 3: awareness of it as like a movie that was part

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Speaker 3: of the common culture and that everybody liked. And I

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Speaker 3: think I really never sat down and saw the whole

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Speaker 3: thing until I was an adult.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's certainly a lot of movies like that where

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Speaker 2: they're just I mean, it's really a film like this

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Speaker 2: becomes a part of the atmosphere. You can't help but

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Speaker 2: breathe it in, and you have no idea how it

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Speaker 2: originally came into your house, you know, I just seep

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Speaker 2: through the.

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Speaker 3: Walls but I will have some more things to say

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Speaker 3: about it when when we get back to I don't know,

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Speaker 3: maybe when we talk about the critical reception. I do

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Speaker 3: remember being surprised by some things about it when I

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Speaker 3: saw it, either for the first time ever in my

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Speaker 3: life or for the first time as an adult, whichever

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Speaker 3: that was. You know, when I saw it in my

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Speaker 3: in my thirties, it wasn't exactly what I expected, And

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Speaker 3: maybe we can talk about some reasons for that when

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Speaker 3: we get into some stuff about the critical reception. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: but don't misinterpret me. I love Labyrinth. I mean, it's

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Speaker 3: just it's a trip. There's not there's not really anything

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Speaker 3: like it. The closest I could compare it to, I

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Speaker 3: guess is The Dark Crystal. But actually that's a totally

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Speaker 3: different kind of story, totally different kind of world and movie. There.

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Speaker 3: There really just is nothing like Labyrinth I can think of.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it is. It's in many ways,

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Speaker 2: as we'll discuss, it's it was the logical next step

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Speaker 2: after Dark Crystal, but it and it is as ambitious

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Speaker 2: a film in some respect in its use of groundbreaking puppetry,

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Speaker 2: you know, pushing the boundaries of what puppetry can do

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Speaker 2: while also looking to puppetry's past and finding things to uh,

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Speaker 2: you know, to to to utilize and reinvent. But it

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Speaker 2: is a very different story. It's a very different like

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Speaker 2: entertainment product in its own way. Yeah, So we'll get

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Speaker 2: into some of those differences and similarities as we go here.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's go ahead and hear just a

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Speaker 2: little trailer audio for Jim Henson's Labyrinth.

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Speaker 4: Tri Star Pictures announces the collaboration of three extraordinary talents,

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Speaker 4: Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets and Dark Crystal.

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Speaker 3: Where you want what I hay like that?

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Speaker 4: George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars Saga, and one

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Speaker 4: of the most innovative forces in modern entertainment, David Bowie.

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Speaker 4: Together they will take you into a dazzling world of

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Speaker 4: fantasy and adventure.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing to be afraid of, a world.

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Speaker 4: Where anything seems possible and nothing is what it seems.

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Speaker 5: Everything I've done, I've done for I move the stars

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Speaker 5: of novels.

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Speaker 4: The world of Labyrinth.

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Speaker 2: All right, if you want to go watch Labyrinth or

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Speaker 2: rewatch Labyrinth before proceeding with the rest of this podcast episode,

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Speaker 2: well more power to you. This one is widely available

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Speaker 2: in all formats and the special this is one of

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Speaker 2: those releases where I feel like the special editions just

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Speaker 2: keep rolling out. The limited edition steal book from shout

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Speaker 2: Factory looks really good. I was just getting some some

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Speaker 2: like social media ads about this the other day, and

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Speaker 2: I I feel like it's one of these things where

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Speaker 2: I don't own labyrinth ons and like a special edition

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Speaker 2: physical media release, but I'm always tempted to get one,

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Speaker 2: and each time they roll out a new one, I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is the one, this is the one.

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Speaker 3: I should get.

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Speaker 2: That they keep upping the ante. But yeah, there are

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Speaker 2: a number of been a number of releases, and again

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Speaker 2: that shout Factory product looks really nice.

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Speaker 3: You know. I wonder if to people out in the

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Speaker 3: disc publishing world, is it especially movies that have nostalgic

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Speaker 3: tie ins to people's childhood that are most likely to

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Speaker 3: get bought up with these like big elaborate special edition

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Speaker 3: blu rays and boxes that you know, the special cases

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Speaker 3: and the posters and all the accessories that come with them.

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Speaker 3: I would have to think that nostalgia is a big

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Speaker 3: driver in selling these kind of things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would guess so. But then again, I look

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Speaker 2: at my own experience and I think the most money

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Speaker 2: I've ever paid for a Blu ray was for a

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Speaker 2: special edition of Fool Cheese Conquest that came with a

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Speaker 2: special slipcase. And I can't quite explain why, because this

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Speaker 2: is not a movie I watched as a child. I

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Speaker 2: don't have that kind of deep nostalgia for it. But

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Speaker 2: I have a certain depth of nostalgia for the film,

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Speaker 2: and for some reason, it's like I had to have it.

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Speaker 2: You know, maybe it's like the fomo of a special

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Speaker 2: release slipcase and you're just like, somehow I've missed this.

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Speaker 2: I must have it. Yes, I will pay extra for

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Speaker 2: it on eBay.

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Speaker 3: There is something really perversely enjoyable about getting an elaborate, lavish,

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Speaker 3: lovingly produced edition of a movie that is grimy and

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Speaker 3: gauzy and is just really concerned with pus.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it has a prize place in the drawer

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Speaker 2: where I keep the discs. All right, well, let's get

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Speaker 2: into the folks involved in the creation of this picture,

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Speaker 2: starting at the time, of course, with Jim Henson. This

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Speaker 2: is the first time we've really talked about Jim Henson

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Speaker 2: on the show before, you know, in depth. You know,

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Speaker 2: work comes up time and time again, and I'm blanking

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Speaker 2: on to what extent we've ever discussed something that the

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Speaker 2: Creature Shop was involved in. It's possible the Creature Shop

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Speaker 2: has come up directly in an episode or two, but

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Speaker 2: at any rate, Jim Henson is the director, he has

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Speaker 2: a story credit. He is also an uncredited Goblin performer.

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Speaker 2: There were a lot of Goblin performances in this puppetry wise,

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Speaker 2: he lived nineteen thirty six through nineteen ninety easily one of,

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Speaker 2: if not the most important puppeteers of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: I recently watched the excellent twenty twenty four documentary Jim

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Speaker 2: Henson Idea Man. This was directed by Ron Howard, and

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Speaker 2: I believe it's currently streaming on Disney in most places.

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Speaker 2: And this documentary does a really, really great, really entertaining

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Speaker 2: job of discussing Hinson, largely from the standpoint of his

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Speaker 2: ambition and his dreams, also getting the you know, litle

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Speaker 2: bit into his personal life, his family life, and of

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Speaker 2: course his professional life being like the main focus because

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Speaker 2: it's about, you know how all these ideas he had

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Speaker 2: ultimately the limited amount of time he had to pull

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Speaker 2: them off and yeah, like he was a guy that's

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Speaker 2: just constantly coming up with concepts that so many things

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Speaker 2: that didn't even come to fruition, Like he really had

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Speaker 2: all these plans for a nightclub at one point. Well yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: and I'd seen these some illustrations, some concept art that

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Speaker 2: he'd put together for this at the Center for Puppetry

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Speaker 2: Arts in a museum display years ago. But they get

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Speaker 2: into this in the documentary as well.

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Speaker 3: New York's Hottest Club is muppet essentially.

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Speaker 2: Like even one of the things that they drive home

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Speaker 2: in that documentary is that even you know, early on,

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Speaker 2: he was drawn more to the power of television than

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Speaker 2: he was to puppetry itself, though of course puppetry became

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Speaker 2: his core performance medium. And yeah, he continued to push

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Speaker 2: the boundaries of what was possible with puppets, the sorts

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Speaker 2: of audiences they could be reached through puppets, sometimes like

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Speaker 2: initially like rebelling against you know, a box that he

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Speaker 2: helped draw for himself, like going from becoming you know,

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Speaker 2: the the creator of Sesame Street in this you know,

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Speaker 2: huge property for children, and then breaking out and doing

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Speaker 2: something like The Muppet Show and beyond and again, you know,

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Speaker 2: incorporating diverse traditions of puppetry along the way related performance styles,

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Speaker 2: and pushing into new frontiers of things like animatronics, which

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Speaker 2: we see in this film, and even you know, late

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Speaker 2: in his career got a little bit into into CGI

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Speaker 2: and looking at what computer generated imagery could do, though

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Speaker 2: often through sort of the guise of puppetry, like you know,

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Speaker 2: some sort of like computer animated face that is controlled

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Speaker 2: by like live action puppeteering.

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Speaker 3: Is the owl at the beginning of Labyrinth and the

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Speaker 3: credit sequence is that CGI?

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Speaker 2: I believe it is. Yeah, I believe that's like early

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Speaker 2: I would argue largely effective CGI. It maybe doesn't look

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Speaker 2: as cool now as it did when I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: but it still looks pretty good. It's not you know,

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Speaker 2: I feel like it mostly it's yeah for eighty six

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Speaker 2: especially Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: So.

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Speaker 2: Of course, Hinson is famous for his Muppet based shows, again,

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Speaker 2: particularly Sesame Street and all the various series and films

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Speaker 2: to spin off of the Muppet Show, but of course

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Speaker 2: his creative output also includes the excellent Storyteller series we've

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Speaker 2: referenced on the show before, both the first season and

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Speaker 2: then the Greek season. I still hold those up as

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Speaker 2: excellent nineteen eighty two's Dark Crystal, and of course eighty

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Speaker 2: six is Labyrinth. This would prove to be his last

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Speaker 2: full length feature film directorial effort before his untimely death

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety at the age of fifty three.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So I guess this brings us back to the

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Speaker 3: comparison between The Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. I love

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Speaker 3: them both, though I think the Dark Crystal is a

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Speaker 3: little more impressive to me just because of the format

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Speaker 3: of its storytelling and its ambitions in that regard, in

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Speaker 3: that The Dark Crystal has no human characters in it.

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Speaker 3: You know, the Dark Crystal is not a like a

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Speaker 3: fairy tale integrated with our world as a kind of

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Speaker 3: you know, bridge fantasy from regular life like Labyrinth is.

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Speaker 3: The Dark Crystal is like a mythology that has nothing

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Speaker 3: to do with Earth, and there are no humans and

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Speaker 3: no Earth history and no Earth technology. It's just this

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Speaker 3: totally different world and everything in it is pure imagination.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's otherworldly, and and in fact that

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Speaker 2: the initial cut was maybe a little too otherworldly for

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Speaker 2: some test audiences because they had all these constructed languages,

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Speaker 2: so the sketchies are speaking a strange tongue and so forth,

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Speaker 2: and they had to do like subsequent cuts where they

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Speaker 2: added actual like English language dialogue to the picture. So,

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Speaker 2: you know, the Dark Crystal was certainly like aiming for

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Speaker 2: something epic and strange and wonderful and achieve that. And

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Speaker 2: so Labyrinth seems to be an attempt to make something

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Speaker 2: that has the same vision and the same you know,

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Speaker 2: like level of detail going into every nook and cranny

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Speaker 2: of the picture, but also calibrating all of that more

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Speaker 2: towards like pure popular entertainment, you know, music, humor, whimsy,

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Speaker 2: and build everything around relatable human actors, one a youth

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Speaker 2: and the other a very popular musician.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Labyrinth to me seems like it's taking a lot

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Speaker 3: of the same creativity and creative energy behind The Dark Crystal,

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Speaker 3: but lightening the tone a bit and connecting it to

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Speaker 3: the human world with a human protagonist, and also orienting

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Speaker 3: the story a little. I mean, you could say in

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Speaker 3: both cases that probably the primary marketing was directed towards kids.

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Speaker 3: But the Dark Crystal is pretty as the title would

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Speaker 3: imply dark and Labyrinth I think is probably you would

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Speaker 3: argue a little bit more kid friendly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you still I certainly know people in

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Speaker 2: real life who are like, yeah, I never liked Dark Crystal.

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Speaker 2: It was too scary for me. It's too scary for

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Speaker 2: me now. And and that will come into play here

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Speaker 2: in a second, because when Labyrinth came out in eighty six,

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Speaker 2: it was famously a commercial and critical failure. It was

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Speaker 2: it was one of a certified bomb, you know, and

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Speaker 2: one that, apparently, according to that documentary, hit Hintson really hard.

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Speaker 2: You know, he ultimately was able to, you know, to

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Speaker 2: roll with the punches and you know, move on to

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Speaker 2: the next thing. But I think, you know, everybody put

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Speaker 2: a lot of love into Labyrinth and were really bummed

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Speaker 2: out when critics didn't like it and when audiences didn't

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Speaker 2: come out to see it. But of course, as is

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Speaker 2: sometimes the case with films like this, the children did

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Speaker 2: end up seeing it. They might not have seen it

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Speaker 2: at the theater, their parents might not have taken them,

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Speaker 2: but they ended up renting it or seeing it on television.

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Speaker 2: They told each other about it, they watched it and

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Speaker 2: rewatched it. They grew up with it, and as such

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Speaker 2: it has it has built up this cult following over

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Speaker 2: the years, and it has become this much beloved film

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Speaker 2: that is, you know, not this not in any way

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Speaker 2: tarnish the careers of those involved, but is sometimes like

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Speaker 2: one of the most iconic things they ever did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, as I was saying earlier, it's one of those

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Speaker 3: movies where, again to sort of interpret my perception of

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Speaker 3: its place and culture, it was a movie where you wouldn't,

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Speaker 3: even if you were a child, question whether it was

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Speaker 3: good or not, or whether there could be anything wrong

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Speaker 3: with it. It's just like it's the canon. It is

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Speaker 3: the canon of storytelling.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and yeah, And like I said, you

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Speaker 2: grow up with them and sometimes you do reevaluate these things,

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Speaker 2: but maybe they do have an advantage because they've been

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Speaker 2: with you so long. And if it's a film like Labyrinth,

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Speaker 2: I feel like it's, you know, its flaws are not

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Speaker 2: enough to defeat that fire that was implanted in you

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Speaker 2: early on with the film. But again, the grown up

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Speaker 2: world of film critics did not feel the same way.

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Speaker 2: I was reviewing some of these, and it's interesting. So

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Speaker 2: Leonard Malton, a mere four years before he was killed

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Speaker 2: by Grimlins and Grimy too, he gave one of the

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Speaker 2: very few favorable like mainstream reviews for Labyrinth. Ebert gave

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Speaker 2: one that I think he gave it two out of

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Speaker 2: two stars total, and you know, like a generally like

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Speaker 2: an Ebert review, it's you know, it's not unkind it

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Speaker 2: it points out things he really likes, but ultimately it

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Speaker 2: doesn't see the logic in the picture. And then Gene

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Speaker 2: Siskel his review, if you want to dig that one up,

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Speaker 2: is one of the most brutal film reviews I've ever seen.

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Speaker 2: I'm mad he is mad. Not only does he not

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Speaker 2: like Labyrinth, he seems to have hated everything about it

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Speaker 2: and everyone in it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Actually, so we were reading this off mic and

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Speaker 3: this brought up a kind of funny difference between Ebert

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Speaker 3: and Siskel. You know, it's not across the board this way,

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Speaker 3: but I feel like more often when Roger Ebert didn't

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Speaker 3: like a movie, he had a kind of sense of

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Speaker 3: humor about it, whereas Gene Siskel was more likely to

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Speaker 3: come off as like really offended by the fact that

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Speaker 3: a movie was bad like him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that definitely holds true when you look

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Speaker 2: at Cisco's review of Elabyrinth. Yeah, he called it quite

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Speaker 2: awful and visually ugly, which I mean, you know, say

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Speaker 2: what you will about Jim Henson Pictures and you know,

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Speaker 2: you don't have to like them. But I mean, generally

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Speaker 2: most people acknowledge that there's a lot of you know,

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Speaker 2: great visual design that goes into these things. But you know,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, everyone's entitled to their opinion.

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Speaker 3: I guess you might have different levels of personal tolerance,

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Speaker 3: and this might be a very learned thing. Personal tolerance

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Speaker 3: for ugly beautiful, like to see the beauty in designs

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Speaker 3: that are meant to be ugly but capture ugliness in

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Speaker 3: an exquisite way, which a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 3: this movie does. It has monsters in it that are

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Speaker 3: not supposed to be like, you know, Hoggle is not

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Speaker 3: supposed to look super attractive, but Hoggle looks wonderful, and

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00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:57,960
Speaker 3: the goblins are not supposed to look like attractive people.

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Speaker 3: They look like goblins, but they are beautiful goblins. I

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Speaker 3: feel like Ciskel is just not approaching the movie with

399
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Speaker 3: a tolerance for that kind of ambition at all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, critics hated it, and people who listened

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Speaker 2: to critics, you know, probably decided, well, maybe we'll skip

402
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Speaker 2: this one since everyone seems to hate it so much

403
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Speaker 2: or dislike it or find it lacking, and I was

404
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Speaker 2: reading an article or a chapter rather in the Wider

405
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Speaker 2: Worlds of Jim Henson. It's a book that came out

406
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Speaker 2: years back. There's a part in it by the author

407
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Speaker 2: Tom Holst, and it's titled finding your Way through the Labyrinth,

408
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Speaker 2: and he points out that some parents are also thought

409
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Speaker 2: to have kept their kids away due to negative experiences

410
00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 2: bringing them to see the Dark Crystal. Earlier, folks had

411
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 2: heard oh the Dark Crystal is going to be you know,

412
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Speaker 2: from the maker of the Muppets in the Sesame Street,

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Speaker 2: and it was maybe a little too scary, and so

414
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Speaker 2: that might have kept them from going out to see

415
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:54,400
Speaker 2: Labyrinth when it came out, for fear that there would

416
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Speaker 2: be a similar experience. Finally, this is another thing that

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Speaker 2: Holst points out. We also look at Labyrinth in the

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Speaker 2: way it connects, though to various other themes explored in

419
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Speaker 2: other Hintson projects, including some of his short film works.

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Speaker 2: That some of those did have buppets and some of

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Speaker 2: them didn't. But these different themes include a fractured view

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Speaker 2: of time, the theme of being trapped a film as

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Speaker 2: a metatext, and the trappings of superficiality. So those are

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Speaker 2: all worth keeping in mind as we continue to discuss

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Speaker 2: the movie here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Rewatching Labyrinth with this knowledge of its reception history

427
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 3: is odd and interesting because you have this contrast, like

428
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Speaker 3: the as we've been talking about the Chili reception it

429
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 3: got from critics and people pointing out all of these

430
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 3: things that are arguably flaws with it, flaws in the storytelling,

431
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Speaker 3: flaws in the design, flows in the acting, and so forth.

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Speaker 3: And at the same time you contrast that with what

433
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 3: I've been saying about I'm pretty sure I'm right about this,

434
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 3: the way that so many kids just totally accepted this

435
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 3: movie as part of the very fabric of childhood. And

436
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,639
Speaker 3: I was trying to think what accounts for that difference.

437
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 3: And I think Labyrinth is a movie where you could

438
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 3: easily nitpick a lot of things about it if you're

439
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: not along for the ride. But if you're along for

440
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 3: the ride, it's just perfect and you don't question anything.

441
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 3: And so the real question is are you along for

442
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 3: this ride or not? And what determines if someone will

443
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 3: be or will not be along for the ride, Like

444
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 3: clearly Gene Siskel was, he did not agree to be

445
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,959
Speaker 3: along for the ride. It's almost in this regard. I

446
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 3: was thinking the inverse of a movie we talked about

447
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 3: a few weeks ago, Ridley Scott's Legend. Legend is a

448
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:51,399
Speaker 3: movie made of amazing parts, but somehow it is less

449
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 3: than the some of those parts. Something about it just

450
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 3: doesn't quite click as a story overall. Labyrinth, on the

451
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 3: other hand, I think has I mean, of course it

452
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 3: it also has amazing parts, and you know, great character

453
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 3: designs and puppetry and all that, but it has a

454
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 3: lot of specific stuff you could criticize if you were

455
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 3: so inclined, But if you just take the movie as

456
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 3: an indivisible whole, the way you a lot of times

457
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 3: kids take movies as just a totally absorbing experience that

458
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 3: you don't really think about critically. It would never even

459
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 3: occur to you that any part of it could be

460
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 3: less than perfect. It's just the ride you're on, and

461
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 3: it's it's amazing.

462
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 2: I was thinking about something along these lines when I

463
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 2: was swimming lapse this morning that like, for me, a

464
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 2: movie is often like a Frankenstein's Monster. You know, yeah,

465
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,479
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it's made from the most beautiful pieces

466
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 2: imaginable and that you can't even see the stitch work

467
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 2: and then other times it's ghastly. The stitches are raw

468
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 2: and apparent, you know, and there are other like design problems.

469
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 2: But at the end of the experiment, if the creature

470
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 2: can rise up and it has something like, you know,

471
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 2: cohesive life to it, then like then you buy it.

472
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 2: Like that, that's the thing. It has to be able

473
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 2: to walk out of the laboratory. Yeah, and if it does,

474
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,120
Speaker 2: then yeah, the movie like works at least on some

475
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 2: sort of level that I can get behind. And it's

476
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: it's interesting because you have sometimes you do have a

477
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 2: beautiful monster that's there on the slab, But if the

478
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 2: spark doesn't happen, if it doesn't rise up, then you know,

479
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:27,239
Speaker 2: what can you do?

480
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Labyrinth is getting up and walking, It's it's

481
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 3: running around, it's dancing, it's taking its head off and

482
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 3: tossing it to the monster next door.

483
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely, all right, let's see other folks involved here.

484
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 2: A story credit goes to Dennis Lee born nineteen thirty nine.

485
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 2: He'd previously worked as a composer on Fraggle Rock and

486
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 2: We Could would continue to work in the music department

487
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,199
Speaker 2: and as a composer on subsequent Hints and projects. He

488
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 2: is also an author and poet for children. Some of

489
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 2: his poems were adapted into the nineteen ninety two TV

490
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 2: movie Alligator Pie. And then, of course we have a

491
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 2: screenplay credit to Terry Jones, who have nineteen forty two

492
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 2: through twenty twenty the legendary Monty Python, writer, director, performer,

493
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 2: and medieval historian. Jones worked on an early draft of

494
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,400
Speaker 2: the screenplay, and he retains the credit here, though I'm

495
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 2: to understand only some of his original ideas remain. But

496
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 2: I've always felt that you still get a very strong

497
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: Pythhonian vibe off of the film.

498
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 3: Yes, I couldn't tell you exactly what those elements are

499
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:38,439
Speaker 3: off the top of my head, but I can feel

500
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 3: the ghost of Monty Python in this beast.

501
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 2: I feel like the specific things that feel like Terry Jones.

502
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 2: And I could be wrong on this, you know, this

503
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 2: is often the case the most authentic thing and a

504
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 2: work is actually the most fake and so forth. But

505
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 2: I always get a strong Terry Jones vibe from the

506
00:27:54,520 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 2: part where where Hoggle is spraying the fairies because we

507
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 2: find out it's because fairies bite. Yes, that feels very

508
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 2: Terry Jones. And then the logic puzzle of the door

509
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 2: Guardians that we hear we encounter later on. That also

510
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 2: feels very Terry Jones, and I again could be wrong

511
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 2: in both of those cases.

512
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 3: No, I agree with you there So.

513
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 2: Jones apparently worked off a novella by Dennis Lee, as

514
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 2: well as the drawings of artists Brian Froud who will

515
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 2: come back to But the shooting script apparently had a

516
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 2: number of different fingerprints on it. You had like Jim Henson,

517
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:32,199
Speaker 2: of course, producer George Lucas Fraggle, writer Laura Phillips, and

518
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,959
Speaker 2: also writer Elaine May. Anyway, Terry Jones is best known

519
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 2: for his work with Money Python. He co directed Holy

520
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: Grail in seventy five, Monty Python and The Holy Grail,

521
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 2: and directed both Life of Brian and seventy nine and

522
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 2: The Meaning of Life in eighty three, followed by various

523
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 2: works including nineteen eighty nine's Eric the Viking. He wrote

524
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 2: numerous fiction and nonfiction books, including nineteen eighty's Chaucer's Knight,

525
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 2: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary. All right, of course,

526
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 2: as we've been saying, this is a David Bowie film.

527
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 2: David Bowie, who lived nineteen forty seven through twenty sixteen

528
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 2: plays Jareth the Goblin King Again. We previously talked about

529
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 2: David Bowie in our episode on The Man Who Fell

530
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 2: to Earth, and here we return once more to what

531
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 2: would become one of his most iconic film roles, and

532
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 2: rather than revisit everything we said before, I thought we

533
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 2: might instead just sort of position Labyrinth within his filmography

534
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 2: and his discography, So in the case of the latter,

535
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 2: it falls between his nineteen eighty four album Tonight and

536
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven's Never Let Me Down Now.

537
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 3: I love David Bowie, but I don't know either of

538
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 3: these albums. I don't think I've ever listened to them.

539
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 2: I had never listened to them before. I had listened

540
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 2: to them both at least a couple of times through

541
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 2: each bill while researching and doing notes for this episode, because,

542
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 2: like the former was long considered and I think maybe

543
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,479
Speaker 2: it is still considered one of his lesser albums and

544
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: was poorly received, though it was apparently re released with

545
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 2: new instrumentation and the deletion of a track titled Too Dizzy.

546
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 2: But again, I didn't listen to the original version of

547
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: the album. All I have is this, I believe the

548
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 2: new version that's on the streaming platforms to listen to,

549
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 2: and you know, I can't compare, but you know, I

550
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 2: didn't hate it. The reggae elements are interesting. The title

551
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 2: track is a duet with Tina Turner, and he collaborated

552
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 2: with Iggy Pop on some of the tracks as well.

553
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 2: And then Never Let Me Down was an attempt apparently

554
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 2: to sort of course correct, but was also poorly received.

555
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 2: Even though you have a track. There's one track, Shining Star,

556
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 2: which features a rap by Mickey Rourke. You I would

557
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: think that would be successful, but I don't know. But again,

558
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 2: I listened to this all the way through and I

559
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: didn't hate anything. I really liked the track Bang Bang,

560
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 2: which is an Iggy Pop cover. Oh and then Time

561
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 2: Will Crawl is also one that I thought was pretty good.

562
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 2: But Bowie himself would end up distancing himself from both

563
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: of these albums later on, so you could sort of

564
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 2: see this as like, from his standpoint, you know, this

565
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 2: was kind of like a low point in his creative output.

566
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: Now on the film front, this one occurs after John

567
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 2: Landis's nineteen eighty five thriller Into the Night and Julian

568
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 2: Temple's Absolute Beginners. The same year, and he'd follow it

569
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 2: up with nineteen eighty nine's The Last Temptation of Christ.

570
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 2: So it's interesting that while the mid eighties are not

571
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 2: considered the high point of his musical output, in Labyrinth,

572
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 2: at least he busts out one of what would become

573
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 2: his most iconic roles ever, and also a soundtrack album's

574
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: worth a material I think, with five tracks in total

575
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 2: that I think have stood the test of time, like

576
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 2: these are beloved songs today, even though at the time,

577
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 2: again the movie was not a critical or financial success,

578
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 2: and it's I don't think he ever performed a single

579
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: one of these songs live, you know. I think he,

580
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: like a lot of people, just kind of like rolled

581
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 2: with the punches and just moved on from Labyrinth, even

582
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 2: though it would go on to generate this kind of

583
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 2: love and this kind of an audience.

584
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 3: I think Bowie's presence in this movie is very interesting

585
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 3: to analyze. On one hand, he is, you know, he's

586
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 3: David Bowie, so he's captivating whenever he's on screen. On

587
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 3: the other hand, he seems a little checked out. Did

588
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 3: you feel the same way, Like it seems like he's

589
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 3: his engagement with the material and in his scenes is

590
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 3: often it seems quite muted and like he's he's a

591
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 3: little bit hazy.

592
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things where

593
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: and we kind of got into this a little bit

594
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 2: with in the episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth,

595
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: Like these tendencies might also ultimately benefit the character, because

596
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 2: what is Jareth Jareth is he is a tyrant. He

597
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 2: is like a manchild who has apparently grown perhaps from

598
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 2: infancy into this position of great power without any checks

599
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 2: and balances in place. And so yeah, maybe he does

600
00:32:57,080 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 2: kind of check out at times because he can. He

601
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: can do so, he's he's a little bit aloof you know,

602
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 2: he's vain, but he's also vulnerable. He's charismatic and can

603
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,719
Speaker 2: also be quite cruel. Like there are a number of

604
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 2: sort of paradoxes with this guy.

605
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's villainous, he can be cruel, but he's also

606
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 3: a little bit dreamy at a i don't know, a

607
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 3: slightly reduced state of consciousness.

608
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, ultimately he's of the fairy folk

609
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 2: in his own way. Now, one thing that I was

610
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 2: thinking about is that the character of Jared is never

611
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 2: fully explained here, not in the final cut of the film,

612
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 2: you know, And I've read that like Hinson and Lucas

613
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: kind of like went back and forth on the final edit,

614
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 2: where Hinson would have more dialogue and Lucas would cut

615
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,479
Speaker 2: dialogue and then they'd kind of like find the balance.

616
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 2: So maybe an earlier cut it went into this, but

617
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 2: you don't really know like what he is or why

618
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 2: he's there, Like he's the King of the Goblins, but

619
00:33:54,400 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 2: he's obviously or presumably not a Goblin himself. And apparently

620
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 2: at some time, at some points in pre production, they

621
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 2: intended for Jareth to be a more darkly satanic, more

622
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 2: in line with what Legend does with darkness, and knowing

623
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 2: what Legend was going to do with that character, they

624
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,439
Speaker 2: kind of went in a different direction. But I've read

625
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 2: that in an earlier draft of the script it was

626
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 2: revealed that Jareth was once a mortal who solved the Labyrinth.

627
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 2: And then I also have a Labyrinth bestiari by St. Binde,

628
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 2: and she writes that Jareth himself was a changeling, so

629
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 2: he was brought into the Goblin realm as an infant

630
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 2: to serve as the heir to the previous Goblin ruler.

631
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 2: I guess it's because goblins need a ruler, and none

632
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 2: of them want to do it themselves, Like can't we

633
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 2: steal a baby to do this? Can't we train a

634
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 2: baby to do this? And the answer is yes, that's

635
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 2: how they live their lives.

636
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 3: I have a question, which is is it fun to

637
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 3: be the Goblin King? I see the goblins having fun,

638
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 3: They're you know, horsing around the getting into all kinds

639
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 3: of mischief, But David Bowie seems to be just kind

640
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 3: of languidly presiding over all the mischief. Is he having

641
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 3: fun being Goblin King?

642
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,919
Speaker 2: I think he gets bored and I think he gets

643
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of anxiety there. You know,

644
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 2: we see like his boredom often turns into cruelty. And yeah,

645
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 2: he is also deeply invested in the theft of this baby,

646
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 2: in the acquisition of Sarah. I think because he feels

647
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 2: like like there's incompleteness in his life and in the

648
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 2: stability of his reign, Like he needs fresh blood, he

649
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 2: needs an air, He needs someone who loves him as

650
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 2: opposed to just the goblins, who certainly serve him. But

651
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 2: I think love would be a strong word. And that's

652
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 2: where Sarah comes in. Sarah is, of course, played by

653
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 2: Jennifer Connelly born nineteen seventy Academy Award winning actress whose

654
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 2: credits as a child actress date back to a nineteen

655
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 2: eighty two episode of Rhaldahl's anthology series Tales of the Unexpected.

656
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 2: It's one. I don't think I've seen this one, but

657
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 2: it's titled Stranger in Town. It stars Derek Jacoby, and

658
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 2: I included it's still from it. Here you can see

659
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 2: a very young Jennifer Connolly standing there next to a

660
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 2: Derek Jacoby in a ridiculous, I don't know, some sort

661
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 2: of a jester or magician costume. Yeah, a cross between

662
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 2: the two, okay. She also pops up in the music

663
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 2: video for Duran Durand's Union of the Snake from nineteen

664
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 2: eighty three. I think she's supposed to be like a

665
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 2: cult member or something cool. And she followed this up

666
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 2: with a small role in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a

667
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 2: Time in America that's an eighty four l and then

668
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 2: Dario Argento's Phenomena in nineteen eighty five opposite Donald pleasants Joe.

669
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 2: I still haven't seen this one, so you'll have to summarize.

670
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 3: It's impossible to summarize the plot of Phenomena. It involves.

671
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 3: It involves like, I think, a super intelligent chimpanze and

672
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 3: swarms of insects that are controlled by a psychic and

673
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 3: I don't know, because it's it's Jallo film, so he

674
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 3: has like murders at a Swiss boarding school, of course,

675
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 3: and I don't know. I can't describe it all. But

676
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 3: it does involve Donald pleasance and a chimpanzee and insects

677
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 3: and murder mysteries, and Jennifer Connolly is the main character.

678
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: All right. So these are essentially the credits that led

679
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 2: into her playing Sarah in Labyrinth at the age of fourteen,

680
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 2: at least in the early stages of the production, and

681
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 2: her subsequent credits would include the likes of nineteen ninety

682
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 2: one's The Rocketeer, ninety eight's Dark City, two thousands, Requiem

683
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:34,720
Speaker 2: for a Dream two thousand and one, is a Beautiful

684
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 2: Mind two thousand and threes, Hulk, twenty fourteen's Noah, and

685
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:39,240
Speaker 2: the TV series Snow Piercer.

686
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 3: I think she's great in all those later movies, By

687
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 3: the way, some of the ones I remember really standing

688
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 3: out to me were like Dark City, and all that.

689
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 3: But you know, I remember liking her even in movies

690
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 3: that I liked less overall, Like I remember thinking A

691
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,919
Speaker 3: Beautiful Mind is just kind of some some oscar bait.

692
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 3: But you know, Jennifer Connolly is always great.

693
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I really enjoy on snow Piercer Now. Sarah's

694
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 2: parents are only briefly in the film, but as the

695
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:08,240
Speaker 2: only other two adult humans present, they deserve mention. Shelley

696
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 2: Thompson born nineteen fifty nine plays Sarah's stepmother, a Canadian

697
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 2: actor and director whose credits also include eighty five episodes

698
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:15,879
Speaker 2: of Trailer Park Boys.

699
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 3: Really Yeah Wow.

700
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 2: And then Sarah's father is played by Christopher Malcolm who

701
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 2: lived nineteen forty six through twenty fourteen. A Scottish born

702
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 2: actor of stage and screen who actually originated the role

703
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 2: of Brad in the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show,

704
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 2: which become The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and he appears

705
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 2: in Richard O'Brien's nineteen eighty one follow up to Rocky Horror,

706
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 2: Shock Treatment, and he also had small roles in nineteen

707
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 2: eighties Superman two and The Empire Strikes Back, and he

708
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: has a role in Highlander, a role that I think

709
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,919
Speaker 2: I always forget that this features into the plot, even

710
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 2: the slightest. But there's like a vigilante character running the

711
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 2: streets in Highlander, and Christopher Malcolm plays that digilante. I

712
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 2: think he's killed by the Kurgan. It's a very forgettable

713
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 2: part of the film. Yeah, this one is one that

714
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 2: felt like an insert from another dimension, Like really that

715
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 2: was part of this film that I've seen multiple times.

716
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 2: But I guess so if you say Internet okay, And

717
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 2: of course there's a long list of Muppet performers and

718
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 2: voice actors and other creatives. They include the likes of

719
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 2: Warwick Davis, Kenny Baker, Kevin Klash, Stephen Whitmeyer, Frank Oz,

720
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 2: Karen Prell, Dave Goles, Jim Hinson himself, of course, and

721
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:34,720
Speaker 2: his son Brian Hinson born nineteen sixty three, who voices Hoggle,

722
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 2: who of course is Sarah's. The word friend is thrown

723
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 2: around a lot, and I guess we'd get there eventually,

724
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: but mostly he just betrays her over and over again.

725
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 2: But yes, Brian Hinson provides the voice there, but he.

726
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 3: Helps her too, and yeah, it's a you know, your

727
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 3: friendship is something you grow into.

728
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's I just love the parts where he's like,

729
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 2: He's like, she's my friend, I won't betray her. And

730
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 2: then Jared is like, Holdtle, I need you to poison her,

731
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:09,280
Speaker 2: and he's like, all right, I'll do it. So anyway,

732
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 2: we'll come back to some of these individuals as we

733
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 2: proceed here, but I will point out that among the

734
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 2: voice actors, Michael Horden, who lived in nineteen eleven through

735
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, provides the voice of the wise Man,

736
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 2: the one with the bird on his hat. He's also

737
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 2: known for his performance as the voice of Frith, the

738
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 2: sun god in nineteen seventy eight's Watershipped Down, and his

739
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,399
Speaker 2: other credits include sixty three's Cleopatra, sixty Eights Where Eagles Dare,

740
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 2: seventy threes Theater of Blood, seventy five's Barry Lindon. In

741
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two is Gandhi.

742
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 3: Theater of bloods eventsent Price movie, Yeah, with almost the

743
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 3: same plot as Doctor Fibes, except with a more overtly

744
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 3: comedic Hammi theater orientation Shakespearean theater.

745
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 2: All right, we mentioned Brian Froud earlier conceptual designer and

746
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: costume designer born nineteen forty seven English fantasy illustrator who

747
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 2: had worked with Alan Lee on the nineteen seventy eight

748
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 2: book Fairies. His work often calls back to nineteenth century

749
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 2: and early twentieth century fantasy illustration, particularly like fairytale inspiration.

750
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 2: And I've heard from friends who have seen him speak

751
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:17,399
Speaker 2: in the past that he's something of like a true

752
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 2: believer in fairy folk like he doesn't just draw the fairies,

753
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 2: he knows that they are real. He of course served

754
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 2: as a conceptual as the conceptual designer on The Dark

755
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 2: Crystal previously, he also later worked on The Storyteller. His

756
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 2: other conceptual artist credits include two thousand and three's Peter

757
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 2: Penn in twenty sixteen's Pete's Dragon Interesting as well. He

758
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 2: met his wife, Wendy on the set of The Dark Crystal.

759
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 2: She worked in the creature workshop on that film and

760
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 2: also on this film as well, and they had a son,

761
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 2: Toby famously born eighty four, who of course plays baby Toby,

762
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 2: Sarah's brother in this picture. So real life. Toby has

763
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: gone onto work in special effects and animation on such

764
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 2: films as two thousand and fourteen's The Box Trolls and

765
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: the twenty nineteen series The Dark Crystal, The Age of Resistance.

766
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 3: Oh nice, but yeah, you actually do get to see

767
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 3: a real baby crying in this movie though. I was

768
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 3: watching close when the Goblin King Jarrett starts like throwing

769
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 3: him really high up in the air. That is a doll.

770
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 3: That's not the real baby.

771
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 2: That's good. I mean his parents were on set. They

772
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 2: weren't going to allow that to happen. Okay. Alex Thompson

773
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 2: was cinematographer on this. I only mentioned it because we

774
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 2: brought We mentioned him briefly in Legend, same cinematographer as Legend,

775
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 2: so that's that's interesting. And then you know, music is

776
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,280
Speaker 2: a big part of this film. Trevor Jones did the score.

777
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 2: Born nineteen forty nine, South African composer with some very

778
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: impressive credentials going back to the late seventies. The other

779
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 2: scores include ex Caliber from eighty one, eighty two's The Cinder,

780
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 2: The Dark Crystal, eighty five's Runaway Train, eighty seven's Angel Heart,

781
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 2: eighty eights, Mississippi Burning, ninety two is Free Jack, as

782
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:58,879
Speaker 2: well as the Last of the Mohicans Dark City, and

783
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 2: two thousand and one is from Hell and He's Still

784
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 2: still active.

785
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 3: I wonder if he's still getting residuals on free Jack.

786
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 2: Well, one would hope. Now I'm not current enough on

787
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 2: all of his scores, or even most of his scores.

788
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 2: I've never seen The Cinder, but it's it's on my list.

789
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 2: But I think his score for The Dark Crystal is

790
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 2: really really good, and I love the glistening electronic splendor

791
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 2: of his work in Labyrinth here fused, of course, with

792
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 2: the musical stylings of David Bowie. And again, yes, David

793
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 2: Bowie's music is key here as well. It is a

794
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 2: full fledged musical featuring five original tracks from David Bowie.

795
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 2: We'll come back to these as we go, but they

796
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 2: are Underground, Magic Dance, Chili Down, as the World Falls Down,

797
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: and within You.

798
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,280
Speaker 3: I say, possibly the opening track Underground is the most

799
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 3: memorable for me, like as a good song. But what's

800
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 3: the most memorable just as an experience. I think it

801
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 3: might be Chili Down? Which is that? I don't know,

802
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 3: is this song terrifying, horrible, wonderful? What is going on?

803
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 2: There's a lot to process with Chili Down. I think

804
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 2: I think all of us who began watching Labyrinth as

805
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 2: a child are still trying to figure out how we

806
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 2: feel about Chili Down, and of course the sights and

807
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 2: traumas that accompany it. Like if you went into this

808
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 2: film having found the Dark Crystal uncomfortable, then the Chili

809
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 2: Down sequence is basically like a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah,

810
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 2: but luckily the rest of Labyrinth doesn't have quite the

811
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 2: same flavor.

812
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 3: Yeah. But it is that track Underground that plays with

813
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 3: the opening credits, with the CGI owl, because it's got

814
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 3: these lines that are uh, these are quite memorable. It

815
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 3: says it's only for forever. It's not long at all.

816
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, which fits nicely into this treatment of time

817
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 2: in this picture. But yeah, I love the score when

818
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 2: it hits us, the score that transitions into Bowie's Underground,

819
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 2: a track that's going to play again in the closing credits. Yeah, lyrically,

820
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 2: I think it's a It's a song that really captures

821
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 2: both Sarah's emotional state and the temptations of the Goblin King.

822
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 2: You know, it just feels emotionally on point as we

823
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 2: enter in at first, not necessarily not really into the

824
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 2: world of the Labyrinths just yet, but into the real world,

825
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 2: into the mundane world that Sarah finds herself trapped in

826
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 2: like this is a film that's ultimately about her being

827
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 2: trapped in a fantasy world, but in the beginning she

828
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 2: is trapped in her mundane life.

829
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 3: So yeah, the action begins in a beautiful outdoor location.

830
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 3: Actually the place that's almost shockingly green. It's this park

831
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 3: with a small river running through it, stone bridges, lush grass,

832
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 3: and these dark, shadowy trees. I am pretty sure this

833
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 3: was shot at a place called west Wycombe Park in

834
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 3: the UK. I looked it up to do some comparison.

835
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 3: But in the foreground of this shot we get the

836
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 3: animated owl from the credits, which has become a live

837
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 3: action owl, which settles on a granite obelisk. And then

838
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 3: in the background, our heroine, Sarah played by Jennifer Connelly

839
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 3: comes running into the scene over one of these low

840
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 3: stone bridges, and when we first meet her, she's dressed

841
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,800
Speaker 3: in a costume, a sort of a Renaissance era gown

842
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 3: with a garland in her hair. And I think this

843
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 3: is meant to be a kind of fake out, like

844
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 3: we might assume that the movie takes place in another

845
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 3: time period, but no, it turns out she is I

846
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,879
Speaker 3: think rob Let me know if you disagree. I think

847
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 3: she's supposed to be rehearsing for a play, and she's

848
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:42,879
Speaker 3: apparently in costume for that, but either way, she's practicing

849
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 3: some kind of lines. She's trying to memorize something from

850
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 3: a book, and as she runs and dances through the park,

851
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 3: she says her lines, and the lines go like this.

852
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:55,720
Speaker 3: They are important because they recur throughout the film. She says,

853
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 3: give me the child through dangers untold and hardship's unnumber.

854
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 3: I have fought my way here to the castle beyond

855
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 3: the Goblin City to take back the child that you

856
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,760
Speaker 3: have stolen for my will is as strong as yours,

857
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,760
Speaker 3: and my kingdom is as great. And then she starts

858
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 3: to stumble. She can't remember the next line, and she

859
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 3: struggles for a bit and then eventually gets the book

860
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 3: out of her pocket and looks at it and remembers

861
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 3: the next line is you have no power over me.

862
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 3: After she gets the line, thundercracks, a rainstorm is beginning,

863
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 3: and a nearby clock tower strikes at seven o'clock and

864
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 3: Sarah realizes, oh, she is late for something. So we

865
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 3: get to see her run back through the park through

866
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 3: a neighborhood through sort of downtown area of a small

867
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 3: town in the rain to get back home, and her

868
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 3: adorable shaggy dog Merlin is with her. By the way.

869
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 3: He's one of these mop like dog breeds, sort of

870
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 3: more fur than body. I don't know what breed that is,

871
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 3: but I love Merlin. Question is Merlin the same dog

872
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 3: as Ambrosious, the dog of Sir Didymus later in the story,

873
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 3: or is that a different dog?

874
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 2: Oh? You know, I'm not sure if we're I mean,

875
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 2: in a sense, definitely, but in terms of dog actors maybe.

876
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 3: Okay, So I know it's not part of the main

877
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 3: fantasy setting, which is the real draw of the film.

878
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 3: But for some reason, I also really love the real

879
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 3: world locations at the beginning of the movie, the park,

880
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:30,479
Speaker 3: the town, and the storefronts, the rainy neighborhood. I think

881
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 3: they look wonderful and they're this interesting mix of dreary

882
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 3: but lovely.

883
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:37,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it it really works because the more we

884
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 2: see of Sarah's real life, we realize that, yeah, it's

885
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 2: like she's she's not to discount her displeasure or her emotions,

886
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 2: you know, because of course these are gonna be going

887
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 2: to be very subjective and all, but like you know,

888
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 2: she is what she is in what to all appearances

889
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,399
Speaker 2: would look like a very comfortable house and a very

890
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 2: comfortable life, but that is not how she feels. She

891
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 2: feels very set upon. She feels that she is trapped

892
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 2: here and deserally wants escape.

893
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 3: Yes, so, and when we see that conflict immediately when

894
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 3: Sarah gets home, she's confronted on the porch by her stepmother.

895
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 3: Sarah is late. She was supposed to be home to

896
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 3: babysit her little brother Toby so her father and stepmother

897
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 3: could go out for the evening, and there are sort

898
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 3: of multiple levels of conflict. Sarah is very frustrated and

899
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 3: put upon. She resents being asked to babysit when she

900
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 3: should be outliving her own life. But then her stepmother says, basically, well,

901
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 3: if you had plans, you could have told me I'd

902
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:42,239
Speaker 3: like for you to go out and have dates in

903
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 3: a social life. And it's almost like the fact that

904
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:51,399
Speaker 3: her stepmother is not being more unreasonable further enrages Sarah,

905
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 3: and she runs upstairs, yelling, pouting that apparently she can't

906
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:59,680
Speaker 3: do anything right. And I like this relatively complex depiction

907
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 3: of teen angst because it feels real to me, like

908
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 3: the conflict is not one dimensional or about just a

909
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:11,360
Speaker 3: single subject. Instead, it seems that Sarah is living in

910
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 3: a stew of many conflicting emotions and desires, all of

911
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,320
Speaker 3: which are thwarted at the same time, Like she wants

912
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 3: to be an adult and have independence and self determination,

913
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:25,399
Speaker 3: but feels like something is preventing her. But also there

914
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 3: are signs that she wants to go the other way

915
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 3: and regress into the self centered mind space of childhood

916
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 3: and just be free of all responsibilities and all cares

917
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,319
Speaker 3: about others. And we see this in the way that

918
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,239
Speaker 3: she hides in a room and finds solace in her

919
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:43,319
Speaker 3: collection of stuffed animals, and later in the way she

920
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 3: unfairly projects resentment onto her baby brother. And I think

921
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 3: that feeling of complex and even mutually exclusive, thwarted desires

922
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,880
Speaker 3: is very relatable to anybody who remembers being a teenager themselves,

923
00:50:57,120 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 3: Like I remember what that felt like in a way

924
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 3: where it was just like everything was confusing and frustrating

925
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 3: and nothing felt right and there wasn't actually one single

926
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 3: cause of it. It's just that that's what it's like

927
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 3: to be fifteen or sixteen. The conflict here isn't just

928
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 3: about babysitting.

929
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not that your stepmom is telling you

930
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 2: to go water a stump. Yeah yeah, yeah. And so

931
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 2: of course she goes to her room, and boy, what

932
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:25,399
Speaker 2: a room it is. I think we've talked about kids

933
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,479
Speaker 2: rooms on the show before, but this is always something

934
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:30,719
Speaker 2: that I pay a lot of attention to when I

935
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:33,839
Speaker 2: watch a film. How have you decorated this child's room?

936
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,280
Speaker 2: Did you just print out some stuff from Getty Images

937
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 2: and you're pretending it's a poster or did you use

938
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 2: real posters? You know? Is it all fake franchise stuff?

939
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 2: Does it feel like a child actually lived in this

940
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 2: room or not? And I think they do just a

941
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:53,320
Speaker 2: fabulous job with Sarah's room here, with her reality of stuff,

942
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 2: which is going to be vitally important to the plot,

943
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:58,479
Speaker 2: of course, but it also needs to feel real.

944
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. What are her music posters? She have like staying

945
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 3: on the wall or something.

946
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:02,959
Speaker 2: Yeah.

947
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 3: Yeah. But also we see in the room. I think

948
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:08,439
Speaker 3: it's in her room that there's a copy of Where

949
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 3: the Wild Things Are. That really caught my eye because

950
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 3: currently my daughter is obsessed with Where the Wild Things Are?

951
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 3: She calls it Max Boat you know, Max gets in

952
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 3: a boat goes across the ocean.

953
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 2: Oh that's a great one. Yeah, yeah, we read that

954
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 2: one a lot too.

955
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 3: She likes to here where the wild things are, like

956
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 3: while she's eating, she's having dinner, and she wants us

957
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 3: to read it to her while she's having dinner, which

958
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:33,800
Speaker 3: we indulge in sometimes.

959
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 2: And what's her favorite wild thing?

960
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 3: Well, honestly, I think it's Max. She likes Max. He's

961
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 3: the king of the wild things. He's the one who

962
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 3: says it's time to let the wild rump us begin.

963
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 2: So all right, solid solid.

964
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe as we continue to read it

965
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 3: over time, she'll she'll find more more to love down

966
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:54,919
Speaker 3: the character sheet. But anyway, Sarah is left to take

967
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:58,360
Speaker 3: care of Toby while her parents go out, and so

968
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 3: she discovers at some point that one of her old

969
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,279
Speaker 3: stuffed animals I think it's named Lancelot. It's like a

970
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 3: teddy bear named Lancelot has been taken from her room

971
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,880
Speaker 3: and given to the baby, and this makes her even

972
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 3: more angry. And then the baby's crying and she doesn't

973
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 3: know how to make him stop, which again, you know,

974
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 3: is a relatable feeling. It does create this feeling of helplessness,

975
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 3: and while in the middle of all these frustrations about

976
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 3: to boil over, Sarah suddenly gets an idea, a terrible idea,

977
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 3: an idea that seems to be related to the book

978
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 3: or the play that she's been memorizing. She gets the

979
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 3: idea to, I think, sort of say a magic spell

980
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 3: from whatever the story is that makes goblins come and

981
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:47,839
Speaker 3: take a child away. And this actually leads to one

982
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 3: of my favorite little stylistic choices, one of my favorite

983
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 3: editing moments in the movie. So when she's trying to

984
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 3: remember the words to say to summon the goblin magic

985
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:03,320
Speaker 3: and remove Toby from her life, suddenly, with no warning

986
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:06,840
Speaker 3: at all, we just cut to a bunch of goblin

987
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 3: faces waiting with baited breath for her to say the words.

988
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,000
Speaker 3: They're like yelling at each other, like know listen She's

989
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 3: gonna say the words. Such an odd and surprising choice,

990
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 3: the way we just smash cut to goblins with no

991
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 3: previous introduction or even indication that they exist. Everything up

992
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 3: to this point has been fully realistic, no fantasy elements

993
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 3: at all, and so the first time we see anything

994
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 3: magical is an absolutely unexpected smash cut. It almost reminds

995
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 3: me of the moment in the Exorcist when Reagan is

996
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 3: at the doctor's office and she's staring up at the

997
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 3: ceiling and we smash cut to the Pazuzu face peering

998
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 3: out of the darkness. This isn't as as evil and

999
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 3: menacing as that, but it's semi evil and a little

1000
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 3: bit scary. And I love the way that the magic

1001
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 3: just bursts in like that with no warning at all.

1002
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't and really get a clear sense of

1003
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 2: where the goblins are. Are they in the closet, and

1004
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 2: are in the walls? Are they just in the nether void?

1005
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 2: You know that's easily accessible, but equally distance distant from

1006
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 2: you know, our real life at any time. But yeah,

1007
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 2: all this build up is wonderful. I love too how

1008
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 2: she's self narrating her plight here, including talking about one

1009
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:24,240
Speaker 2: day when baby was especially cruel to her, Yes, which

1010
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:28,439
Speaker 2: of course is just such a deliciously over the top

1011
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 2: exaggeration of her current circumstance. Yes, the baby Toby was

1012
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 2: cruel to you today, Baby Toby definitely stole your stuffed animal.

1013
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 3: So anyway, she does eventually remember the words to say,

1014
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 3: and then the magic descends, Toby disappears, he is gone,

1015
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:51,360
Speaker 3: and instead she is now faced with David Bowie playing

1016
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 3: the Goblin King Jerreth. He appears in Toby's room and

1017
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 3: she quite quickly regrets that she sent Toby away. You know,

1018
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:02,480
Speaker 3: she wants him back, but Jared says, at first I

1019
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,359
Speaker 3: think he says she can't have him back, and then

1020
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 3: finally he says, okay, she can only have him back

1021
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:09,320
Speaker 3: if she makes it to his castle at the center

1022
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 3: of the Great Labyrinth before midnight, and if not, Toby

1023
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:15,920
Speaker 3: will become absorbed into the Goblin Horde. He will just

1024
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 3: become goblin.

1025
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean, there's just so many great details

1026
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:23,359
Speaker 2: in this moment and leading up to it. I mean,

1027
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,920
Speaker 2: I love the goblins when they start invading the room. Yes,

1028
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 2: I love. I love Jared laying out the challenge you

1029
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 2: have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth and

1030
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 2: making a time go weird on her, and then the

1031
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:40,760
Speaker 2: first of what will be kind of a recurring element

1032
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 2: in the film of characters really trying to shoot down

1033
00:56:44,160 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 2: her optimism, you know, where she says, Okay, I can

1034
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:49,800
Speaker 2: do this, and he's like, it's further than you think,

1035
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 2: you know, and we'll get something similar from Hoggle later on,

1036
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 2: where he's like, yeah, it just gets tougher from here

1037
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 2: on out, you know which, These lines seem to like

1038
00:56:57,480 --> 00:57:00,920
Speaker 2: echo a sort of adult sensibility that has been handed

1039
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 2: down to Sarah and is reflected in the fantasy world here.

1040
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:08,319
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So suddenly we're in a different place. We

1041
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 3: have been taken to the Goblin Kingdom. We're not in

1042
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:14,320
Speaker 3: Sarah's house anymore. How would you describe the esthetics of

1043
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 3: the Goblin Kingdom? What is this world?

1044
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:16,320
Speaker 1: Like?

1045
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 2: Oh, it's beautiful for starters, but it's also a little

1046
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 2: bit desolate and everything. So many surfaces in the Goblin realm,

1047
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 2: and it varies depending on what section of the labyrinth

1048
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,320
Speaker 2: you're in. So many surfaces look like they have very

1049
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 2: recently been crawled over by some sort of a fairy

1050
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 2: slug that leaves just a little bit of a like

1051
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 2: a glistening sparkle to everything.

1052
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 3: A glittering mucus trail overall.

1053
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it does, I think read rather accurately like

1054
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:48,200
Speaker 2: a fine kingdom that has been ruled too long by goblins. Like, yes,

1055
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 2: upkeep is happening, but it's maybe not as loving as

1056
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:52,479
Speaker 2: it could be.

1057
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:57,960
Speaker 3: Yes now pretty quickly. While finding her way to the

1058
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 3: entrance of the labyrinth so she can get Toby back,

1059
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 3: Sarah runs into someone. She meets, a character named Hoggle,

1060
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:07,960
Speaker 3: who's going to be one of the main characters in

1061
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 3: the movie. When we first meet Hoggle, he is urinating

1062
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 3: into a reflecting pool. Yeah yeah, but so that's I

1063
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 3: guess an inauspicious beginning. But it's sort of a difficult

1064
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 3: meeting at first. Hoggle is not inclined to be very

1065
00:58:22,720 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 3: helpful to her. Instead, he is busy poisoning fairies, I think,

1066
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 3: like dusting them with some like fairy insecticide.

1067
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:34,000
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, he is exterminating fairies. He is not helpful.

1068
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 2: He is grumpy. Hoggle is interesting because Hoggle is not

1069
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 2: maybe not objectively cute, but you do grow to love him.

1070
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 2: He is a character that will betray Sarah over and

1071
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 2: over again and really struggles to muster any like true

1072
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 2: sustaining courage. But you know eventually he's going to get there,

1073
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 2: but you do have to be patient with him on

1074
00:59:00,240 --> 00:59:01,320
Speaker 2: that journey.

1075
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,680
Speaker 3: That's right, And he does sort of disappear and reappear

1076
00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:06,160
Speaker 3: repeatedly throughout the story.

1077
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he's difficult to count on for a while.

1078
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, when Sarah first goes into the quick question

1079
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 3: of terminology, should we continue to call it the labyrinth

1080
00:59:18,560 --> 00:59:22,040
Speaker 3: or should we call it a maze? I think I

1081
00:59:22,160 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 3: recall from our episodes on the Minotaur that technically a

1082
00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 3: labyrinth is one in which there is only one path

1083
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,960
Speaker 3: and it does lead ineluctably to the ending. Is that

1084
00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:34,080
Speaker 3: right you.

1085
00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:38,560
Speaker 2: By some definitions? Absolutely? So, Yeah, in some respects you

1086
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 2: could think of the labyrinth here as more of a maze.

1087
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I mean, if the ruler of

1088
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:47,160
Speaker 2: this room calls it a labyrinth, I guess we have

1089
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 2: to respect his goblin word choices.

1090
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:53,439
Speaker 3: Well, I guess that's true. In any case, it does

1091
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:55,760
Speaker 3: not seem that this is a place where you just

1092
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 3: continue walking and you will eventually get to the end.

1093
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:00,960
Speaker 3: You have to make choices about where to where to go.

1094
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 3: But when Sarah first gets into the labyrinth, it's interesting

1095
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 3: that the first real challenge she faces is that she

1096
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:11,960
Speaker 3: can't find anywhere to turn. It just seems like one

1097
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 3: endless corridor. And so she has a wonderful little scene

1098
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 3: where she discusses this with a worm who tells her

1099
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 3: he's like, ah, yeah, I can't tell you. I can't

1100
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:23,919
Speaker 3: help you. I'm just a worm. But then he does

1101
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 3: provide some helpful advice because she discovers that there are

1102
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 3: gaps in the walls that she can move through to

1103
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:34,560
Speaker 3: make turns and find new ways to navigate through the maze,

1104
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 3: but they're hidden by optical illusions. And I love the

1105
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 3: effects used here because from what I can tell, there's

1106
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 3: no real trickery going on except that they just like,

1107
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 3: for example, we'll have a gap in the walls of

1108
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 3: the maze that from the perspective we're looking at it

1109
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 3: totally blends in with the wall behind it, so you

1110
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,040
Speaker 3: can't even tell their two separate walls.

1111
01:00:57,360 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's just a complete practical illusion

1112
01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:01,360
Speaker 2: that they depend on here.

1113
01:01:01,560 --> 01:01:12,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, now we don't have time to talk through the

1114
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:16,080
Speaker 3: entire plot seen by scene, but maybe maybe we should

1115
01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:19,040
Speaker 3: just pick out some of our favorite moments as Sarah

1116
01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 3: is navigating the labyrinth and its challenges and and and

1117
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 3: the people she meets along the way. One thing I

1118
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 3: know you wanted to talk about was the riddle of

1119
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 3: the doors. Who with the dogs guarding them?

1120
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, these guys are a lot of fun. I

1121
01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 2: covered these on the monster fact a while back. They're

1122
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:40,080
Speaker 2: they're they're delightfully weird enough on their own, of course,

1123
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:45,440
Speaker 2: two headed dog like humanoid creatures that are fixed behind shields,

1124
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 2: kind of in the manner of double headed European playing cards.

1125
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 2: It's already a wild design. But then the scenario gets

1126
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:55,320
Speaker 2: even wilder because we find out, of course, that one

1127
01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:57,080
Speaker 2: door leads to the castle at the center of the

1128
01:01:57,160 --> 01:01:59,960
Speaker 2: labyrinth and the other one leads to Bubba Bubom stain

1129
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:03,400
Speaker 2: and death. The lower heads have no idea what's going on,

1130
01:02:03,440 --> 01:02:06,560
Speaker 2: which door is which the upper heads do, but Sarah

1131
01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 2: is only permitted to ask one of them. Furthermore, one

1132
01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 2: of the two guardians always tells the truth, while the

1133
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:15,680
Speaker 2: other one always lies. So Sarah faces a conundrum here.

1134
01:02:15,720 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 2: How can she find out which door is which? How

1135
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 2: can she risk asking the wrong guardian and being lied to?

1136
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 2: And this is really fascinating because the scenario here, of course,

1137
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 2: instantly invokes what is known as the liar's paradox. If

1138
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 2: a liar tells you they are lying, then they are

1139
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:35,400
Speaker 2: telling the truth. So you can consider the statement this

1140
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:38,120
Speaker 2: sentence is a lie. If that statement is true, then

1141
01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 2: it's false. If it's false, then it's true.

1142
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:43,240
Speaker 3: Right, hence that it's a paradox it's self contradictory.

1143
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now the scenario that Sarah is facing here, I

1144
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 2: have to admit that I really have to do some

1145
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,480
Speaker 2: mental gymnastics to make sense of the riddle here. I

1146
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:54,960
Speaker 2: think when I was younger, at one point I did

1147
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:57,880
Speaker 2: like settle down and think about it long and hard

1148
01:02:57,960 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 2: enough to where it clicked. But for the most part,

1149
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 2: I just really have to trust that the film is

1150
01:03:02,640 --> 01:03:04,280
Speaker 2: not lying to me when it tells me that this

1151
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:07,240
Speaker 2: is the correct answer. But I did research it a

1152
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 2: little bit. As John Tourre points out in the paper

1153
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 2: objective falsity is essential to lying an argument from convergent

1154
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:18,280
Speaker 2: evidence published in Philosophy Studies twenty twenty one, Sarah here

1155
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 2: is engaging in what is called answer laundering. The truth

1156
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:26,680
Speaker 2: and the lie dependably cancel each other out in this scenario,

1157
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:30,840
Speaker 2: provided Toy stresses that lies cannot be true because the

1158
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 2: answer laundering she engages here is, of course, she asks

1159
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:37,439
Speaker 2: one of the guards what the other guard would say

1160
01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:42,320
Speaker 2: in reaction to her question, and she uses that answer

1161
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:44,160
Speaker 2: to figure out which way is which.

1162
01:03:44,600 --> 01:03:47,800
Speaker 3: But that makes sense because you know either way that

1163
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 3: will point you to the wrong door. If you ask

1164
01:03:49,880 --> 01:03:53,240
Speaker 3: the truth telling guard what the other guard would say,

1165
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:56,080
Speaker 3: they will truthfully tell you that the other guard will

1166
01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 3: lead you to the wrong door. And if you ask

1167
01:03:58,280 --> 01:04:00,880
Speaker 3: the lying guard what the truth tells guard would say,

1168
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:04,680
Speaker 3: they will lie and tell you the wrong door. So

1169
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 3: either way that indicates which door is the wrong one.

1170
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 3: So by elimination you know which is the right one.

1171
01:04:10,200 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 2: It's a piece of gay. So Terry points out that

1172
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 2: the riddle here of the four guards is a variant of,

1173
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:18,640
Speaker 2: or seems to be a variant of the Knights and Knaves,

1174
01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:22,760
Speaker 2: a logic puzzle from Raymond Smulliam's nineteen seventy eight publication

1175
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:26,280
Speaker 2: What is the Name of This Book? Yeah, This scenario

1176
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:28,680
Speaker 2: closely resembles what we see in Labyrinth. It involves a

1177
01:04:28,760 --> 01:04:32,600
Speaker 2: knight and a nave otherwise indistinguishable. Who guard a fork

1178
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:34,919
Speaker 2: in the road? Which road are you going to take?

1179
01:04:35,240 --> 01:04:37,920
Speaker 2: Dare you ask these two men given that one is

1180
01:04:37,960 --> 01:04:40,880
Speaker 2: secretly a noble knight and one is secretly a vile nave.

1181
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:45,880
Speaker 2: The solution, again is via answer laundering. You ask which

1182
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 2: path the other individual would say is the correct one,

1183
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:50,560
Speaker 2: and then you can use that to determine which is

1184
01:04:50,560 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 2: the correct way. Sarah guesses correctly, but of course Sarah

1185
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 2: gets cocky and she gets the trap door for her efforts.

1186
01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 3: It almost indicates that she got it wrong, but I

1187
01:05:00,480 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 3: think she did get it right.

1188
01:05:02,400 --> 01:05:03,480
Speaker 2: I believe so. Right.

1189
01:05:03,600 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So she goes through the door and then

1190
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:11,560
Speaker 3: immediately falls down a trapdoor into and there's like a

1191
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 3: so the pit she falls into. It's kind of funny

1192
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 3: that there are all these hands poking out the walls,

1193
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:20,160
Speaker 3: you know, like they like stop her from falling, and

1194
01:05:20,200 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 3: they say they're helping hands, and they form faces that

1195
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,800
Speaker 3: talk out of the gloved hands. So it's kind of

1196
01:05:25,840 --> 01:05:28,680
Speaker 3: a weird creepy scene. It reminds me of something actually

1197
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 3: that would be in Return to Oz and they feel right.

1198
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:35,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, great sequence, a very inventive use of

1199
01:05:35,760 --> 01:05:39,040
Speaker 2: hand puppetry. Yeah, there's nothing else like it.

1200
01:05:39,640 --> 01:05:41,120
Speaker 3: But they ask her if she wants to go back

1201
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:42,760
Speaker 3: up or to go back or to go all the

1202
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:45,320
Speaker 3: way down, and for some reason she chooses down. So

1203
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 3: that ends up dropping her into an oubliette where she eventually,

1204
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:53,360
Speaker 3: oh she here. She meets back up with Hoggle again.

1205
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Rescued by Hoggle, they make a deal over some jewelry, right.

1206
01:05:58,520 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 3: I think there's some addition negotiations with Jareth down here.

1207
01:06:03,120 --> 01:06:04,760
Speaker 3: I think this is the sequence where they have to

1208
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:07,800
Speaker 3: run from this like nightmare device that's chasing them down

1209
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 3: a tunnel, threatening to grind them into the wall. But

1210
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,160
Speaker 3: they eventually they bust through and find a ladder up

1211
01:06:13,160 --> 01:06:16,760
Speaker 3: to the surface, after which they talk to like a

1212
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:19,680
Speaker 3: snoozy old wise man who I think is sort of

1213
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 3: a dog but also is a human and then has

1214
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:23,160
Speaker 3: a bird on his head.

1215
01:06:23,280 --> 01:06:27,160
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, and they gets some limited amounts of wisdom

1216
01:06:27,200 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 2: from this character.

1217
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:31,600
Speaker 3: Somewhere around here also is where we meet another one

1218
01:06:31,800 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 3: of the Lovable Friend characters who become a part of

1219
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 3: Sarah's gang. This is Ludo. Ludo is initially caught in

1220
01:06:40,720 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 3: a trap and hanging upside down and being badgered by

1221
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:47,479
Speaker 3: a bunch of goblins. Ludo is like a large sort

1222
01:06:47,520 --> 01:06:51,240
Speaker 3: of sasquatch type creature with sort of curving horns on

1223
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:54,680
Speaker 3: his head, who appears very monstrous but in fact is

1224
01:06:54,720 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 3: actually quite sweet natured.

1225
01:06:56,600 --> 01:06:59,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, or if you're Gene Siskel, this is a ripoff

1226
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:01,320
Speaker 2: of Chewbac. What a ripoff?

1227
01:07:03,000 --> 01:07:07,160
Speaker 3: Because he has fur? Is that it I guess he's

1228
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:09,640
Speaker 3: big and has fur, therefore is Chewbacca.

1229
01:07:10,080 --> 01:07:12,400
Speaker 2: But yeah, Ludo's great, Ludo's a gentle giant.

1230
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:16,360
Speaker 3: You love him, Yes, lovable. Sarah rescues Ludo from being

1231
01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:18,680
Speaker 3: harassed by the goblins.

1232
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 2: With the nibbler sticks. Great sequence. And oh and then

1233
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 2: this is where they're doing the hobby horse technique here

1234
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:25,480
Speaker 2: for the little guys running around.

1235
01:07:25,480 --> 01:07:25,880
Speaker 4: It's great.

1236
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:27,840
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, so they've got like these

1237
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:30,680
Speaker 3: little monsters attached to the ends of sticks that they're

1238
01:07:30,840 --> 01:07:34,400
Speaker 3: using to bite Ludo with. But then she frees him.

1239
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:36,960
Speaker 3: She she like gets the goblins all fighting each other

1240
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:40,480
Speaker 3: until they run away, and then she frees him, and

1241
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:45,520
Speaker 3: after that Ludo is friend. Now in this sequence, Hoggle

1242
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 3: runs away, but he'll show back up again later. I

1243
01:07:47,920 --> 01:07:50,800
Speaker 3: think somewhere around in here is where Sarah ends up

1244
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 3: running into the fire Gang.

1245
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 2: Yes, the Fire Gang or the Fieries. Oh, these are

1246
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 2: creatures that have always been pure nightmare fuel to me.

1247
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:06,040
Speaker 2: They're a band of musical bird like goblinoids with like

1248
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:11,600
Speaker 2: bright you know, orange and fire colored feathers fur somewhere

1249
01:08:11,600 --> 01:08:16,240
Speaker 2: in between, and they have disturbing natural abilities in the

1250
01:08:16,280 --> 01:08:20,880
Speaker 2: realms of pyrokinesis as well as dismemberment. They can rip

1251
01:08:20,960 --> 01:08:25,080
Speaker 2: their bodies apart and reattach them at will willy nilly

1252
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:28,400
Speaker 2: in various positions. They can even connect their limbs together

1253
01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:33,639
Speaker 2: into new monstrous shapes. It's a sequence full of body horror,

1254
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:39,600
Speaker 2: dance music, Menace Mayham. It is a lot to process,

1255
01:08:40,240 --> 01:08:42,920
Speaker 2: but it is a musical number. The song here is

1256
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:46,640
Speaker 2: David Bowie's Chili Down. If you listen to the soundtrack

1257
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:49,080
Speaker 2: Slash Score album you get to hear Bowie singing on

1258
01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:51,479
Speaker 2: it a little bit of belief. But in the film

1259
01:08:51,880 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 2: it is performed by Kevin Klash born nineteen sixty. Know,

1260
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:58,439
Speaker 2: you know as the voice of Elmo, the original voice

1261
01:08:58,439 --> 01:09:02,120
Speaker 2: of Elmo. He the voice of the main Fiery. Then

1262
01:09:02,120 --> 01:09:05,760
Speaker 2: you have Danny John Jules born nineteen sixty a British actor,

1263
01:09:05,840 --> 01:09:08,080
Speaker 2: dancer and singer who is also a member of the

1264
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:12,080
Speaker 2: Blood Pack in Blade two. He voices Fiery four, the

1265
01:09:12,120 --> 01:09:15,800
Speaker 2: really dangerous looking one. Then you have Charles Oggens, a

1266
01:09:15,840 --> 01:09:19,880
Speaker 2: British actor, dancer and choreographer who also choreographed this scene

1267
01:09:19,880 --> 01:09:23,200
Speaker 2: as well as the excellent magic dance scene from earlier.

1268
01:09:24,240 --> 01:09:26,880
Speaker 2: And then also you have the actor Richard Bodkin doing

1269
01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:32,880
Speaker 2: a voice as well. So just some horrifying, freaky goblinoid

1270
01:09:32,880 --> 01:09:37,639
Speaker 2: creatures here performing a very wild song. And this whole sequence,

1271
01:09:37,680 --> 01:09:41,800
Speaker 2: of course, escalates into them deciding they need to dismember

1272
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:45,000
Speaker 2: Jennifer Connolly Sarah. They need to rip her head off,

1273
01:09:45,240 --> 01:09:47,880
Speaker 2: because you're not supposed to throw other people's heads, even

1274
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:50,040
Speaker 2: though they throw each other's heads around earlier, Like they

1275
01:09:50,040 --> 01:09:52,679
Speaker 2: don't even follow their own rules. They're just pure creatures

1276
01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:53,320
Speaker 2: of chaos.

1277
01:09:53,560 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are the lines where they're like trying to

1278
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:57,400
Speaker 3: pull her head off? They're like, Eh, it's not coming off.

1279
01:09:57,400 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 3: What's going on?

1280
01:09:58,320 --> 01:09:58,519
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1281
01:09:58,600 --> 01:09:59,240
Speaker 3: Pull harder?

1282
01:09:59,680 --> 01:10:01,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's one of the things that I think

1283
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,040
Speaker 2: always like really struck me about this scene. It's like

1284
01:10:04,560 --> 01:10:08,080
Speaker 2: it's two different realities clashing. Their reality is one of

1285
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:13,840
Speaker 2: just fun dismemberment. It's easily reversible and you can play

1286
01:10:13,880 --> 01:10:16,759
Speaker 2: with it. It's a good time for everybody. But Sarah

1287
01:10:16,800 --> 01:10:19,759
Speaker 2: is from a world where dismemberment is permanent, is permanent

1288
01:10:20,200 --> 01:10:24,240
Speaker 2: and fatal, and they just don't understand that. Why don't

1289
01:10:24,240 --> 01:10:25,680
Speaker 2: you want to take your head off? What is the

1290
01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:26,760
Speaker 2: matter with you? Now?

1291
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:29,160
Speaker 3: You mentioned that there was an earlier part of the

1292
01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:32,439
Speaker 3: movie that featured a musical number called the Magic Dance.

1293
01:10:32,479 --> 01:10:34,600
Speaker 3: I didn't remember exactly where this came, but this is

1294
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 3: the one where we get to see inside the Goblin

1295
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:42,680
Speaker 3: Castle where David Bowie's hanging out. Toby is there with

1296
01:10:42,760 --> 01:10:45,000
Speaker 3: all the goblins. He's sort of crying. It looks like

1297
01:10:45,120 --> 01:10:47,439
Speaker 3: Toby's not having a great time, but the goblins are

1298
01:10:47,479 --> 01:10:50,360
Speaker 3: all partying, and I guess this song is sort of

1299
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:52,240
Speaker 3: about how Toby's going to become one of them.

1300
01:10:52,800 --> 01:10:57,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great sequences, a great song. Bowie

1301
01:10:57,120 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 2: seems to be having a great time as Jareth here

1302
01:10:59,120 --> 01:11:01,759
Speaker 2: with throwing the bait be around and just so many

1303
01:11:01,800 --> 01:11:05,519
Speaker 2: goblin shenanigans as well. This is a goblin packed musical number.

1304
01:11:05,840 --> 01:11:08,439
Speaker 3: You got a goblin doing the Barney gumbel, like laying

1305
01:11:08,479 --> 01:11:10,880
Speaker 3: down with his mouth under the tap of the beer keg.

1306
01:11:11,120 --> 01:11:13,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I was watching it here, I said to

1307
01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:14,760
Speaker 2: my son he was watching with me, I was like,

1308
01:11:14,800 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 2: why why doesn't this goblin just get a cup? Like

1309
01:11:18,200 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 2: they're not charging by the cup here? This is just

1310
01:11:20,479 --> 01:11:22,599
Speaker 2: this seems to be free for any goblins. But now

1311
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:24,680
Speaker 2: he's like, it's just so much easier if I just

1312
01:11:24,760 --> 01:11:27,759
Speaker 2: lay down underneath it on the floor and just catch

1313
01:11:27,760 --> 01:11:29,719
Speaker 2: straight droplets of the stuff.

1314
01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:33,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, the cup requires too much arm exercise. It's difficult.

1315
01:11:33,479 --> 01:11:37,480
Speaker 3: It's goblin mode, I guess. Yeah, so at any rate, Yeah,

1316
01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:40,920
Speaker 3: the fire Gang is something else, Yes, But Sarah does

1317
01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 3: eventually escape the fire Gang with the help of Hoggle.

1318
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:46,760
Speaker 3: I think Hoggle like throws down a ladder to her

1319
01:11:46,800 --> 01:11:49,120
Speaker 3: from the top of a top of a wall to

1320
01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:52,120
Speaker 3: help him get away, or maybe a rope. Maybe that's it.

1321
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:55,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so she's able to escape and doesn't

1322
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:56,280
Speaker 2: get ripped to pieces.

1323
01:11:56,800 --> 01:12:00,519
Speaker 3: But Hoggle and Sarah end up in the Ball of

1324
01:12:00,760 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 3: Eternal Stench. This is a place Hoggle has been threatened

1325
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 3: with before. I think that, you know, it's like, if

1326
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:10,200
Speaker 3: he doesn't do what Jarreed, the Goblin King says, he's

1327
01:12:10,200 --> 01:12:12,360
Speaker 3: going to be cast into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

1328
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:15,760
Speaker 3: The premise is that the bog smells very bad, and

1329
01:12:16,000 --> 01:12:18,960
Speaker 3: if any part of your body touches the liquid in

1330
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:20,799
Speaker 3: the bog, you will stink forever.

1331
01:12:21,640 --> 01:12:24,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the rest of your life. And I've long

1332
01:12:24,920 --> 01:12:27,519
Speaker 2: puzzled over that, like how it works. How does it

1333
01:12:27,560 --> 01:12:30,480
Speaker 2: permanently taint you like that? Does it change your biology?

1334
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:33,839
Speaker 2: What would it look like in like Dungeons and Dragons rules.

1335
01:12:33,920 --> 01:12:38,320
Speaker 2: Is it like a permanent like disadvantage to all charisma

1336
01:12:38,400 --> 01:12:39,680
Speaker 2: roles or something I don't know.

1337
01:12:40,120 --> 01:12:42,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, now here in the bog of Eternal Stench, they're

1338
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:47,960
Speaker 3: trying to get out without touching the cursed water, and

1339
01:12:48,120 --> 01:12:50,040
Speaker 3: at one point they need to cross a bridge, but

1340
01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:53,519
Speaker 3: their path is blocked by a feisty little character who

1341
01:12:53,560 --> 01:12:56,400
Speaker 3: will later become part of our group of friends. This

1342
01:12:56,600 --> 01:12:59,680
Speaker 3: is Serditimus, who I think is either supposed to be

1343
01:12:59,680 --> 01:13:02,559
Speaker 3: a fire or some type of dog. Though it's sort

1344
01:13:02,600 --> 01:13:06,160
Speaker 3: of confusing because he's a muppet who is an anthropomorphic

1345
01:13:06,280 --> 01:13:09,200
Speaker 3: fox or dog, but he rides a dog. He's got

1346
01:13:09,200 --> 01:13:11,559
Speaker 3: a dog that is a dog, and he rides the dog.

1347
01:13:11,800 --> 01:13:15,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of the Pluto goofy paradox once more.

1348
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:19,320
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, Sir Dinamus is kind of a reap, a

1349
01:13:19,400 --> 01:13:22,720
Speaker 3: cheap sort of character. He's like, he's very small and

1350
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:27,519
Speaker 3: feisty and thinks himself very chivalrous and he's always itching

1351
01:13:27,600 --> 01:13:28,040
Speaker 3: for a fight.

1352
01:13:28,400 --> 01:13:31,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a lot of fun. He's always down to joust.

1353
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:35,479
Speaker 2: But his mout, of course, frequently is not as we'll see.

1354
01:13:35,880 --> 01:13:40,439
Speaker 3: So Sarah Ludo and Hoggle are trying to trying to

1355
01:13:40,439 --> 01:13:42,320
Speaker 3: get through this place, and I think they get blocked

1356
01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:44,760
Speaker 3: at a bridge by Sir Dinymus. But I think Sarah

1357
01:13:44,840 --> 01:13:48,200
Speaker 3: is the one who figures out that Sir Dinimus is saying,

1358
01:13:48,240 --> 01:13:50,800
Speaker 3: no one may pass this bridge without my permission, so

1359
01:13:50,920 --> 01:13:53,719
Speaker 3: she realizes she can just ask his permission. It seems

1360
01:13:53,760 --> 01:13:55,800
Speaker 3: this has never occurred to Sir Didymus, that he can

1361
01:13:55,920 --> 01:13:58,200
Speaker 3: just grant permission and still keep his vow.

1362
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, He's like, oh, yeah, sure, granted. They're like

1363
01:14:01,439 --> 01:14:02,479
Speaker 2: all right, good, let's go.

1364
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:05,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so they're like leaving. Now there is an

1365
01:14:05,880 --> 01:14:09,120
Speaker 3: interesting thing here where we discovered that Ludo is not

1366
01:14:09,240 --> 01:14:13,000
Speaker 3: only friend to Sarah, he is also friend to rocks.

1367
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:15,880
Speaker 3: Because there's one point where Sarah is sort of like,

1368
01:14:16,040 --> 01:14:18,880
Speaker 3: I think a bridge collapses underneath her. She's dangling over

1369
01:14:18,920 --> 01:14:21,960
Speaker 3: the bog by hanging onto a tree branch, and she

1370
01:14:22,120 --> 01:14:25,679
Speaker 3: is saved when Ludo summons his rock friends to emerge

1371
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:27,400
Speaker 3: up out of the earth so that she can use

1372
01:14:27,439 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 3: them as stepstones to cross the water.

1373
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:31,599
Speaker 2: That's right, and of course this will come into play

1374
01:14:32,479 --> 01:14:34,679
Speaker 2: in one of the climaxes of the picture.

1375
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:37,840
Speaker 3: Now there is up here somewhere we get one of

1376
01:14:37,880 --> 01:14:42,759
Speaker 3: the Hoggle betrayals, because Hoggle gives Sarah a poisoned peach

1377
01:14:42,920 --> 01:14:47,000
Speaker 3: that the Goblin King gave to him, and this turns

1378
01:14:47,360 --> 01:14:49,960
Speaker 3: this sort of sends Sarah into a trance where she

1379
01:14:50,200 --> 01:14:54,960
Speaker 3: experiences a magic masquerade ball where she is she is

1380
01:14:55,040 --> 01:14:58,160
Speaker 3: tempted to divert from her mission to save Toby and

1381
01:14:58,280 --> 01:15:00,880
Speaker 3: instead just sort of, I don't know, becomes some kind

1382
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:02,160
Speaker 3: of evil queen of magic.

1383
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:06,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like this is one of Jared's temptations

1384
01:15:06,479 --> 01:15:08,280
Speaker 2: to her, like this is what your life could be

1385
01:15:08,400 --> 01:15:11,080
Speaker 2: if you just loved me and stayed with me here

1386
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:14,439
Speaker 2: in this realm. And so it's this dreamy but also

1387
01:15:15,240 --> 01:15:20,080
Speaker 2: frightening sequence, you know, it is it feels like some

1388
01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:23,320
Speaker 2: sort of a weird trip, you know, it's it's a

1389
01:15:23,360 --> 01:15:26,120
Speaker 2: great sequence, but it's not like there are there are

1390
01:15:26,120 --> 01:15:28,519
Speaker 2: a lot of uncanny elements to it. They're creepy masks,

1391
01:15:29,400 --> 01:15:33,160
Speaker 2: you know, sort of typical I guess, you know, period

1392
01:15:33,720 --> 01:15:38,439
Speaker 2: masks that the other dancers are wearing. They're also there's

1393
01:15:38,479 --> 01:15:43,559
Speaker 2: a feeling of actually being like drugged, of reality being

1394
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:45,439
Speaker 2: slowed down because she is drugged. But we have to

1395
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:48,400
Speaker 2: remember if she ate a poisoned peach, and that's how

1396
01:15:48,439 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 2: she's entered into this realm. And it's this feeling of like, Okay,

1397
01:15:51,960 --> 01:15:55,560
Speaker 2: now the hallucination is upon her, and can she recognize

1398
01:15:55,560 --> 01:15:58,400
Speaker 2: it for the hallucination it is and break free from it?

1399
01:15:58,760 --> 01:16:00,559
Speaker 2: And in the midst of this, of course, we have

1400
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:03,759
Speaker 2: another musical number, we get as the World Falls Down,

1401
01:16:03,920 --> 01:16:07,360
Speaker 2: which I mean, no big surprise. I love all of

1402
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:09,640
Speaker 2: these songs, so I will also say this is a

1403
01:16:09,640 --> 01:16:14,040
Speaker 2: great one. But yeah, it has a nice dreamy air

1404
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:16,920
Speaker 2: to it, a nice dancing and slow motion within a

1405
01:16:17,000 --> 01:16:18,639
Speaker 2: silver prison kind of a song.

1406
01:16:26,760 --> 01:16:29,960
Speaker 3: Now, Sarah does not fully succumb to these temptations, and

1407
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:33,679
Speaker 3: she does wake up in a different place. She wakes

1408
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 3: up in a sort of a garbage world, a giant

1409
01:16:37,400 --> 01:16:40,719
Speaker 3: junkyard that seems to lie outside of the Goblin City,

1410
01:16:41,400 --> 01:16:44,000
Speaker 3: and she meets a character who is like a junk

1411
01:16:44,040 --> 01:16:48,280
Speaker 3: trader woman who I think is trying to like Sarah's

1412
01:16:48,400 --> 01:16:52,360
Speaker 3: memory seems only partially intact at this point, and she's

1413
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:55,160
Speaker 3: not fully aware of what she was supposed to be doing,

1414
01:16:55,720 --> 01:16:58,960
Speaker 3: and this junk trader woman is like offering her up

1415
01:16:59,000 --> 01:17:03,439
Speaker 3: a little like trinket and baubles and toys to I

1416
01:17:03,479 --> 01:17:06,160
Speaker 3: think this is part of a different type of temptation

1417
01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:08,960
Speaker 3: we were talking about earlier about her like multiple different

1418
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:11,280
Speaker 3: desires at the beginning of the movie, and this is

1419
01:17:11,360 --> 01:17:14,040
Speaker 3: the temptation to just sort of regress, to go back

1420
01:17:14,080 --> 01:17:17,960
Speaker 3: into childhood and just obsess over over little trinkets and

1421
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:23,720
Speaker 3: selfish toys and collecting little magic, glittering things. And the

1422
01:17:23,800 --> 01:17:26,120
Speaker 3: Lady of the junk World is trying to tempt her

1423
01:17:26,160 --> 01:17:27,040
Speaker 3: into that fate.

1424
01:17:27,960 --> 01:17:30,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great sequence. This also perhaps a little

1425
01:17:30,520 --> 01:17:33,559
Speaker 2: bit frightening, because you know, she goes into what seems

1426
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:36,559
Speaker 2: to be her childhood room and it seems like maybe

1427
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:39,479
Speaker 2: she's back, but then imburse the junk Lady, and the

1428
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:43,040
Speaker 2: junk Lady has this enormous backpack of stuff that has

1429
01:17:43,120 --> 01:17:47,760
Speaker 2: just seemed to like crush and wither her. And there

1430
01:17:47,800 --> 01:17:50,720
Speaker 2: is this scene where Sarah's seated in front of her

1431
01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:53,040
Speaker 2: mirror in her childhood room, but the junk Lady is

1432
01:17:53,040 --> 01:17:56,040
Speaker 2: bringing her all over things and at least visibly from

1433
01:17:56,080 --> 01:17:59,679
Speaker 2: an invisible sense, piling up like a pile of things

1434
01:17:59,720 --> 01:18:03,360
Speaker 2: behind and Sarah's back, as if constructing her own backpack

1435
01:18:03,640 --> 01:18:06,800
Speaker 2: that will eventually wither and crush her, you know, like,

1436
01:18:06,920 --> 01:18:09,800
Speaker 2: here are your earthly possessions, and they are meaningful in

1437
01:18:09,840 --> 01:18:13,280
Speaker 2: and of themselves, and this is what you should cling to,

1438
01:18:13,880 --> 01:18:17,120
Speaker 2: you know, forget what they might represent. That's not important.

1439
01:18:17,160 --> 01:18:19,479
Speaker 2: Here's your stuff. Just focus on your stuff.

1440
01:18:19,720 --> 01:18:23,200
Speaker 3: But fortunately, while being weighed down with these things that

1441
01:18:23,280 --> 01:18:25,479
Speaker 3: I think, in the view of the movie, don't really matter,

1442
01:18:25,560 --> 01:18:29,360
Speaker 3: all these trinkets and treasures, she is saved by the

1443
01:18:29,360 --> 01:18:32,599
Speaker 3: things that do matter, which are her friendships. She starts

1444
01:18:32,640 --> 01:18:35,160
Speaker 3: to kind of realize something is wrong. The place is

1445
01:18:35,200 --> 01:18:37,599
Speaker 3: sort of crumbling, and she's like climbing out of this

1446
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:41,559
Speaker 3: false room prison, and she meets up with and is

1447
01:18:41,600 --> 01:18:45,799
Speaker 3: rescued by her group of friends, including Hoggle and Didymus

1448
01:18:45,920 --> 01:18:46,800
Speaker 3: and Ludo.

1449
01:18:47,000 --> 01:18:49,639
Speaker 2: And so from here, basically to get to the castle

1450
01:18:49,680 --> 01:18:51,559
Speaker 2: at the center of the center of the Goblin City,

1451
01:18:51,880 --> 01:18:55,719
Speaker 2: they're like two more obstacles. First there's like the gate,

1452
01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:58,439
Speaker 2: which has a big automaton in it, and then there

1453
01:18:58,479 --> 01:19:04,040
Speaker 2: is the Goblin City. The automaton battle is a sequence

1454
01:19:04,080 --> 01:19:06,479
Speaker 2: that I've always found to be very visually impressive. You know,

1455
01:19:06,520 --> 01:19:10,719
Speaker 2: I really like the creature design here, but it also

1456
01:19:10,840 --> 01:19:13,040
Speaker 2: has always felt like kind of a natural bathroom break.

1457
01:19:13,360 --> 01:19:16,400
Speaker 2: I don't know there's something about it that it shouldn't.

1458
01:19:17,080 --> 01:19:19,439
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's boring, but it is not as

1459
01:19:19,479 --> 01:19:20,639
Speaker 2: exciting as it should be.

1460
01:19:20,800 --> 01:19:23,120
Speaker 3: Hoggle is actually this is one where we get to

1461
01:19:23,120 --> 01:19:25,559
Speaker 3: see Hoggle. You're brave though he's the one who defeats

1462
01:19:25,600 --> 01:19:26,719
Speaker 3: the Goblin mech.

1463
01:19:26,800 --> 01:19:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually it's absolutely essential from that standpoint, But

1464
01:19:31,080 --> 01:19:33,360
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've always found something was lacking here.

1465
01:19:33,720 --> 01:19:36,759
Speaker 2: But anyway, we passed that test and now the party

1466
01:19:36,840 --> 01:19:39,680
Speaker 2: is united. Everyone's behind Sarah. But yet they have to

1467
01:19:39,680 --> 01:19:42,240
Speaker 2: move through the Goblin City and that's where they are

1468
01:19:42,240 --> 01:19:46,839
Speaker 2: met with the Goblin army and we get this enormous battle.

1469
01:19:46,920 --> 01:19:49,840
Speaker 2: It is. It's a real blast, a mad cap slapstick

1470
01:19:50,000 --> 01:19:53,760
Speaker 2: battle for the ages, featuring every goblin you've seen in

1471
01:19:53,800 --> 01:19:57,240
Speaker 2: the film thus far. Just hordes of goblins of varying types,

1472
01:19:57,640 --> 01:20:03,400
Speaker 2: all sorts of shenanigans, explode usions, sword fights, Ludo calls

1473
01:20:03,439 --> 01:20:07,240
Speaker 2: the Rocks. I always enjoy watching this sequence.

1474
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:10,439
Speaker 3: It's a great thing when he calls the Rocks for help,

1475
01:20:10,479 --> 01:20:12,840
Speaker 3: and then we get to see boulders rolling uphill to

1476
01:20:12,920 --> 01:20:14,040
Speaker 3: attack the goblins.

1477
01:20:15,200 --> 01:20:17,680
Speaker 2: So they get through that, and then it's time for

1478
01:20:17,720 --> 01:20:22,599
Speaker 2: the final showdown. With Jarreth in Jared's stronghold, and we

1479
01:20:22,600 --> 01:20:25,479
Speaker 2: get the scene where we see versions of this in

1480
01:20:25,520 --> 01:20:27,320
Speaker 2: a lot of pictures, right, and a lot of stories.

1481
01:20:27,600 --> 01:20:29,839
Speaker 2: Sarah has to go in alone, she has to confront

1482
01:20:29,880 --> 01:20:33,439
Speaker 2: Jarreth alone. Her friends can't help her in this part

1483
01:20:33,479 --> 01:20:35,439
Speaker 2: of the quest, and so they say goodbye to her

1484
01:20:35,720 --> 01:20:40,240
Speaker 2: and she ventures into this mc escher world of you know,

1485
01:20:40,520 --> 01:20:43,040
Speaker 2: mind bending paradoxical staircases.

1486
01:20:43,640 --> 01:20:46,000
Speaker 3: That's right, And it's not just a comparison. She basically

1487
01:20:46,200 --> 01:20:49,400
Speaker 3: literally is in the MCEs you're drawing with the staircases

1488
01:20:49,439 --> 01:20:51,320
Speaker 3: and the doorways going in every direction.

1489
01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:53,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was another I think there's a poster in

1490
01:20:53,360 --> 01:20:54,840
Speaker 2: her room to this effect as well.

1491
01:20:55,439 --> 01:20:58,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we get a song here, right.

1492
01:20:58,080 --> 01:21:01,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is within You. That is is really great

1493
01:21:01,280 --> 01:21:03,960
Speaker 2: because it's threatening, it's very threatening in places, but it's

1494
01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:08,280
Speaker 2: also very vulnerable in places. And Bowie's vocal performance here

1495
01:21:08,320 --> 01:21:10,800
Speaker 2: is great too, because you have these parts of it

1496
01:21:10,840 --> 01:21:14,639
Speaker 2: where he's very firm and commanding, and then other bits

1497
01:21:14,680 --> 01:21:18,320
Speaker 2: where his voice is like trailing off and growing weak,

1498
01:21:18,920 --> 01:21:22,000
Speaker 2: like almost like he is dying while singing it. Because

1499
01:21:22,040 --> 01:21:24,799
Speaker 2: this is all of course, Jarreff's final appeal to Sarah,

1500
01:21:24,920 --> 01:21:29,200
Speaker 2: like please you know, just fall in line, you know,

1501
01:21:29,320 --> 01:21:34,400
Speaker 2: be here with me, don't defy me. And but no,

1502
01:21:34,560 --> 01:21:36,720
Speaker 2: Sarah is going to stick to her guns and she

1503
01:21:36,840 --> 01:21:39,080
Speaker 2: is going to do what it takes to defeat Jarreff.

1504
01:21:40,120 --> 01:21:43,040
Speaker 2: What exactly that is I still have questions about but

1505
01:21:43,080 --> 01:21:43,599
Speaker 2: she doesn't.

1506
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:47,000
Speaker 3: Well, I checked. So what she does to defeat him

1507
01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:51,599
Speaker 3: is she remembers the words, which is interesting because that's

1508
01:21:51,640 --> 01:21:54,360
Speaker 3: the same thing she did to get into this trouble

1509
01:21:54,360 --> 01:21:58,040
Speaker 3: in the first place. By remembering the words, the lines

1510
01:21:58,120 --> 01:22:01,120
Speaker 3: from the Goblin story. That's how she got Toby kidnapped

1511
01:22:01,120 --> 01:22:04,439
Speaker 3: by the goblins. Remembering the lines from the story is

1512
01:22:04,479 --> 01:22:08,040
Speaker 3: also how she defeats Jarreth. She says she has the

1513
01:22:08,080 --> 01:22:10,200
Speaker 3: same lines she was reciting at the very beginning of

1514
01:22:10,200 --> 01:22:14,080
Speaker 3: the story when she says, through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered,

1515
01:22:14,080 --> 01:22:16,120
Speaker 3: I fought my way here to the castle beyond the

1516
01:22:16,120 --> 01:22:18,360
Speaker 3: Goblin City, and so on and so on. It goes

1517
01:22:18,360 --> 01:22:21,520
Speaker 3: on several more sentences, but it ends with her remembering

1518
01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:24,080
Speaker 3: the final line that she couldn't remember at the beginning.

1519
01:22:24,479 --> 01:22:27,400
Speaker 3: My kingdom is as great and you have no power

1520
01:22:27,520 --> 01:22:30,360
Speaker 3: over me. She repeats this, you have no power over me,

1521
01:22:30,960 --> 01:22:33,960
Speaker 3: And then I think the clock chimes midnight or one

1522
01:22:34,040 --> 01:22:36,200
Speaker 3: whatever it is that the time that she had to

1523
01:22:36,320 --> 01:22:40,320
Speaker 3: rescue Toby by and Jareth is defeated, and so she

1524
01:22:40,720 --> 01:22:43,080
Speaker 3: gets to go back home with Toby.

1525
01:22:42,880 --> 01:22:45,160
Speaker 2: Thirteen o'clock, I believe, think I don't know if it's

1526
01:22:45,200 --> 01:22:46,160
Speaker 2: thirteen pm or.

1527
01:22:46,080 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 3: Am, But I like how there's an ending where she

1528
01:22:50,760 --> 01:22:54,599
Speaker 3: sort of reconciles her earlier frustrations with Toby, Like she

1529
01:22:55,000 --> 01:23:00,360
Speaker 3: repents of her earlier scapegoating of Toby because Toby wasn't

1530
01:23:00,400 --> 01:23:03,320
Speaker 3: really the problem, you know, she was. Like she's just

1531
01:23:03,400 --> 01:23:06,200
Speaker 3: struggling with herself and her role in life at this point,

1532
01:23:06,880 --> 01:23:09,400
Speaker 3: and I think she has some perspective on that. But

1533
01:23:09,439 --> 01:23:12,720
Speaker 3: also I like how she ends up sort of reconciling

1534
01:23:13,200 --> 01:23:18,000
Speaker 3: her relationship with fantasy. She realizes she has to part

1535
01:23:18,080 --> 01:23:20,400
Speaker 3: ways with her magical friends, she has to live in

1536
01:23:20,439 --> 01:23:22,800
Speaker 3: this world, but she also needs to see them from

1537
01:23:22,800 --> 01:23:23,479
Speaker 3: time to time.

1538
01:23:24,120 --> 01:23:28,559
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So she defeats Jarreth again. I never doubt

1539
01:23:28,600 --> 01:23:31,880
Speaker 2: this on an emotional level, you know what's happening, Like

1540
01:23:31,920 --> 01:23:34,559
Speaker 2: she finds the strength to overcome him, and then she's

1541
01:23:34,560 --> 01:23:37,479
Speaker 2: back in her room. She sees like the reflection of

1542
01:23:37,479 --> 01:23:40,760
Speaker 2: her friends through the mirror. But realizes she can call

1543
01:23:40,800 --> 01:23:42,759
Speaker 2: on them when she needs them, and then she does

1544
01:23:43,120 --> 01:23:45,320
Speaker 2: and we get like a final big party sequence in

1545
01:23:45,360 --> 01:23:48,559
Speaker 2: her room, which is great. Though I've always been disturbed

1546
01:23:48,560 --> 01:23:52,880
Speaker 2: by the fact that the Fire Gang members are there, Yes, like,

1547
01:23:52,960 --> 01:23:54,840
Speaker 2: why did you invite them? Why did you could have

1548
01:23:54,880 --> 01:23:57,320
Speaker 2: maybe just let them go, Sarah, It's right, you don't

1549
01:23:57,320 --> 01:24:00,639
Speaker 2: have to keep all of these strange creatures. Maybe let

1550
01:24:00,680 --> 01:24:03,320
Speaker 2: the fire guys go off and live their own life

1551
01:24:03,360 --> 01:24:06,960
Speaker 2: and oblivion. But no, they're there as well, but they

1552
01:24:06,960 --> 01:24:08,639
Speaker 2: seem to be well behaved. They're not trying to pull

1553
01:24:08,680 --> 01:24:09,439
Speaker 2: anybody apart.

1554
01:24:09,840 --> 01:24:14,640
Speaker 3: I invited the bog of eternal stench here it's in

1555
01:24:14,720 --> 01:24:15,559
Speaker 3: my sink now.

1556
01:24:15,960 --> 01:24:19,759
Speaker 2: And we once more get the theme song underground and

1557
01:24:19,800 --> 01:24:23,320
Speaker 2: we roll back. We see that the owl, the animal

1558
01:24:23,400 --> 01:24:25,920
Speaker 2: form of Jared, has like been watching through the window

1559
01:24:26,200 --> 01:24:28,360
Speaker 2: and then takes off and flies away into the night.

1560
01:24:29,040 --> 01:24:31,720
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. It is. It's, like I say, very like

1561
01:24:31,800 --> 01:24:35,880
Speaker 2: emotionally and visually beautiful, satisfying conclusion to the picture.

1562
01:24:36,240 --> 01:24:38,759
Speaker 3: So in the end, you agree with Ciskel that it's awful,

1563
01:24:38,880 --> 01:24:39,920
Speaker 3: ugly and terrible.

1564
01:24:40,720 --> 01:24:45,760
Speaker 2: I could not disagree with ciscl more on Labyrinth. I mean,

1565
01:24:46,720 --> 01:24:48,880
Speaker 2: it really was challenging to talk about Labyrinth here in

1566
01:24:48,880 --> 01:24:51,560
Speaker 2: some respects because you could go on and on, or

1567
01:24:51,600 --> 01:24:53,639
Speaker 2: I could go on and on about just about any

1568
01:24:53,720 --> 01:24:57,559
Speaker 2: moment in the picture. There's always something interesting going on

1569
01:24:57,720 --> 01:25:00,559
Speaker 2: in the set design or in the costuming, in the

1570
01:25:00,560 --> 01:25:04,599
Speaker 2: particular dialogue choices that are in play lyrics to the songs.

1571
01:25:04,600 --> 01:25:07,439
Speaker 2: There are some weird lyrics to these songs we didn't

1572
01:25:07,439 --> 01:25:10,400
Speaker 2: even get into. There are also lines of dialogue, particularly

1573
01:25:10,439 --> 01:25:13,880
Speaker 2: from David Bowie. Some of them I never fully understood,

1574
01:25:13,920 --> 01:25:16,559
Speaker 2: Like I couldn't really understand what he's saying until like

1575
01:25:16,760 --> 01:25:18,800
Speaker 2: this viewing of the picture where I was like, all right,

1576
01:25:18,960 --> 01:25:21,479
Speaker 2: I'm going to turn on the captions for a minute,

1577
01:25:21,479 --> 01:25:23,519
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, he's saying, well laugh. And I

1578
01:25:23,560 --> 01:25:25,800
Speaker 2: always thought he said well love. I don't know why

1579
01:25:25,920 --> 01:25:27,920
Speaker 2: I thought that was the line, but that's what I've

1580
01:25:27,960 --> 01:25:29,320
Speaker 2: been hearing for decades.

1581
01:25:29,680 --> 01:25:32,559
Speaker 3: Huh. Yeah, this is the kind of movie where I

1582
01:25:32,560 --> 01:25:34,679
Speaker 3: feel like a lot of things, especially when you're watching

1583
01:25:34,720 --> 01:25:36,679
Speaker 3: as a kid, can just go right over your head.

1584
01:25:37,920 --> 01:25:39,800
Speaker 2: But you know, there are lots of confusing things in

1585
01:25:39,840 --> 01:25:42,400
Speaker 2: the world of the Labyrinth. Yeah, you know, it's a

1586
01:25:42,439 --> 01:25:46,360
Speaker 2: film in a world full of paradoxes and illusions, and

1587
01:25:46,400 --> 01:25:50,880
Speaker 2: it's part of its texture. There was some essay I

1588
01:25:50,880 --> 01:25:52,759
Speaker 2: was looking at. Maybe it's the one I started earlier

1589
01:25:52,760 --> 01:25:55,360
Speaker 2: talking about, Well, some people were confused when they saw Jared,

1590
01:25:55,439 --> 01:25:57,679
Speaker 2: when they saw David Bowie's charif, and it's like, well, yeah,

1591
01:25:57,920 --> 01:26:01,880
Speaker 2: you should be confused whole Jared. He is supposed to

1592
01:26:01,920 --> 01:26:05,200
Speaker 2: be this alluring and kind of confusing character, Like that's

1593
01:26:05,479 --> 01:26:06,320
Speaker 2: that's intentional.

1594
01:26:07,000 --> 01:26:09,879
Speaker 3: It was the confusion like why isn't he a goblin

1595
01:26:10,040 --> 01:26:12,639
Speaker 3: like the others? Like why are the goblins ruled over

1596
01:26:12,720 --> 01:26:14,880
Speaker 3: by a rock star who with a human form?

1597
01:26:15,240 --> 01:26:18,400
Speaker 2: Right? That? And then also some of the aspects of

1598
01:26:19,439 --> 01:26:23,800
Speaker 2: Jariff being a like a sexually alluring character, but in

1599
01:26:23,840 --> 01:26:26,599
Speaker 2: a way that makes sense, like he is he is

1600
01:26:26,960 --> 01:26:30,679
Speaker 2: like his role is in relationship to Sarah, a young woman,

1601
01:26:31,080 --> 01:26:33,719
Speaker 2: and therefore he has these kind of like pop star

1602
01:26:34,000 --> 01:26:36,920
Speaker 2: elements to him, you know. Yeah, And and so there

1603
01:26:36,920 --> 01:26:39,479
Speaker 2: are a lot of deliberate choices with the way that

1604
01:26:39,520 --> 01:26:43,559
Speaker 2: he is presented as an object of obsession and desire, Like.

1605
01:26:43,560 --> 01:26:45,879
Speaker 3: Would be on a poster on a bedroom wall.

1606
01:26:45,920 --> 01:26:48,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but a bedroom but a poster on the

1607
01:26:48,080 --> 01:26:52,960
Speaker 2: bedroom wall that also is directly bordering the fay world

1608
01:26:53,040 --> 01:26:56,559
Speaker 2: and is influenced by the strange energies of the fairy folk.

1609
01:26:56,880 --> 01:26:59,679
Speaker 3: Yes, why do you think Jared is an owl?

1610
01:27:00,479 --> 01:27:02,519
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the owl is a is a magical

1611
01:27:02,600 --> 01:27:05,080
Speaker 2: bird of the night, so I guess it is a

1612
01:27:05,120 --> 01:27:07,240
Speaker 2: fitting animal form.

1613
01:27:07,640 --> 01:27:11,920
Speaker 3: The owl is dangerous, the owl is inscrutable, the owl

1614
01:27:12,160 --> 01:27:15,520
Speaker 3: is yeah, yeah, it seems like it's got secrets.

1615
01:27:15,880 --> 01:27:18,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, we're gonna gohead and close this

1616
01:27:18,360 --> 01:27:19,920
Speaker 2: one out, but we would love to hear from everyone

1617
01:27:19,960 --> 01:27:22,280
Speaker 2: about Labyrinth. I'm sure a lot of you have thoughts,

1618
01:27:22,720 --> 01:27:25,400
Speaker 2: thoughts about things that we discussed in this episode, but

1619
01:27:25,479 --> 01:27:28,320
Speaker 2: also again, many of the details in the picture that

1620
01:27:28,360 --> 01:27:31,280
Speaker 2: we didn't have time to get into, so right in

1621
01:27:31,400 --> 01:27:33,519
Speaker 2: we would love to hear from you. A reminded The

1622
01:27:33,520 --> 01:27:35,280
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

1623
01:27:35,280 --> 01:27:37,800
Speaker 2: culture podcast, with core episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays, but

1624
01:27:37,840 --> 01:27:40,240
Speaker 2: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to talk

1625
01:27:40,280 --> 01:27:42,640
Speaker 2: about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema. And

1626
01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:44,040
Speaker 2: if you want to see a full list of the

1627
01:27:44,080 --> 01:27:46,360
Speaker 2: movies we've done over the years on Weird House Cinema,

1628
01:27:46,479 --> 01:27:48,479
Speaker 2: go to letterbox dot com. That's l E. T T

1629
01:27:48,600 --> 01:27:50,800
Speaker 2: E R B O x D dot com. Our user

1630
01:27:51,120 --> 01:27:53,160
Speaker 2: name there is weird House and you'll find the nice

1631
01:27:53,240 --> 01:27:55,960
Speaker 2: list and if you're on Instagram, follow us at stb

1632
01:27:56,200 --> 01:27:57,120
Speaker 2: ym podcast.

1633
01:27:57,800 --> 01:28:01,439
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1634
01:28:01,600 --> 01:28:03,240
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1635
01:28:03,240 --> 01:28:05,759
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1636
01:28:05,760 --> 01:28:07,760
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1637
01:28:07,840 --> 01:28:10,360
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1638
01:28:10,400 --> 01:28:18,040
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1639
01:28:18,160 --> 01:28:21,120
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1640
01:28:21,200 --> 01:28:24,000
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1641
01:28:24,120 --> 01:28:27,080
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